Poster abstract - ASWP: A long-term WSN deployment for environmental monitoring

ASWP testbed, a long-term wireless sensor network (WSN) deployment for environmental monitoring, is presented. This testbed integrates 42 MICAz nodes that implement a periodic sampling application for external sensors exposed to a forested nature reserve at the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania (ASWP), USA. It has been running for the past two years using TinyOS-based platforms and the commercially available routing software XMesh. Network performance analysis indicates that the critical impact due to the outdoor environment and node physical failures significantly reduced the network yield when long-term periods were considered. In particular, it is found that an over-used routing path across the network was responsible for most of the packet retransmitted and dropped in ASWP. This preliminary work intends to provide a useful reference point for WSN research and development targeted towards outdoor WSNs for long-term deployments.