Pushing Sensor Network Computation to the Edge

Sensor Networks consist of multiple devices equipped with some sensing apparatus. The devices in the network may be homogeneous or heterogeneous, yet they will coordinate in order to accomplish a pre-defined task. With the rising interest in the use of Sensor Networks in various applications, the sensor nodes need to subsist in a dynamic environment and react in a timely fashion to environmental stimuli. Unfortunately, the current paradigm in Sensor Network relies on static tasking of the nodes to support a common task; which ultimately leads to deployment of various networks to cover a common area so long as the tasks and owners of these networks differ. Straying away from this paradigm, our work introduces a framework to enable nodes to support dynamic tasking in a dynamic environment by pushing computation to the edge through FPGA-based reconfigurable nodes with increased processing power. Furthermore, we contend that the sensing apparatus available on the nodes limits the range of applications that such nodes will support. As such, reconfigurability of the nodes can yield the most efficient and responsive hardware implementation of algorithms to support common tasks of applications. The benefits of our approach are highlighted through the introduction of a target-tracking node that is reconfigurable and provides increased response time to stimuli.