SENSORNETS 2019 Abstracts

Area 1 - Energy and Environment
Full Papers Short Papers
Area 2 - Intelligent Data Analysis and Processing
Full Papers
Area 3 - Security and Privacy in Sensor Networks
Full Papers
Area 4 - Sensor Networks Software, Architectures and Applications
Short Papers
Area 5 - Wireless Sensor Networks
Full Papers Short Papers

Area 1 - Energy and Environment

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 31
Title:

Detection of Honeybee Disease: Varrosis using a Semiconductor Gas Sensor Array
Authors:

Andrzej Szczurek, Monika Maciejewska, Beata Bąk, Jakub Wilk, Jerzy Wilde and Maciej Siuda
Abstract: The presented study was focussed on the detection of Varroa destructor infestation of honeybee colonies, based on gas sensor measurements of beehive air. The detection consisted in determination whether the colony infestation rate was 0% or different. An array of partially selective gas sensors was used in measurements. It included the following semiconductor gas sensors: TGS832, TGS2602, TGS823, TGS826, TGS2603 and TGS2600. The sensors were exposed in dynamic conditions. The infestation detection problem was solved using a classification approach. The basis for classification were feature vectors. They were composed of responses of sensors, elements of the gas sensor array. The utilised responses were associated with various parts of the sensor signal recorded during dynamic exposure and regeneration. As a reference, we used the V. destructor infestation rate of bee colonies estimated using a flotation method. The smallest misclassification error was 17% and it was achieved with the k-NN classifier. The experimental study was performed in field conditions. It included honeybee colonies of various kinds, settled in beehives made of various materials, differently located, examined in various atmospheric conditions, at different times of the day. Taking this into consideration, the detection error at the level of 17 % is a promising result. It demonstrates the possibility to detect varroosis using an array of partially selective sensors.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 32
Title:

Classification of Human Activities Indoors using Microclimate Sensors and Semiconductor Gas Sensors
Authors:

Monika Maciejewska, Andrzej Szczurek and Anna Dolega
Abstract: Nowadays, one of important problems faced by people in developed countries is poor indoor air quality (IAQ). Factors, which influence air inside buildings should be recognised for planning actions aimed at the improvement of indoor conditions. Our study was focused on human impact on IAQ. The aim of this work was the classification of the occurrence of occupants activities, which influence IAQ. The classification was based on measurements of indoor air using sensors. The presented analysis was focussed on the kind of sensors that are capable of providing the information which is most relevant for classification. Two groups of such devices were considered. The first included sensors which are typically used in microclimate measurements, i.e. temperature, relative humidity and CO2 concentration sensor. The second group included semiconductor gas sensors, which are considered as the sources of information about the chemical quality of indoor air. Classification tree was applied as the classifier. The obtained results showed that the measurement data provided by both groups of sensors can be applied for the classification of human activities, with the satisfactory performance. It may be understood that the impact of human activities on indoor air is very broad and may be examined using versatile sources of measurement data.
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Area 2 - Intelligent Data Analysis and Processing

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 11
Title:

Gap Distributions for Analysing Buyer Behaviour in Agent-based Simulation
Authors:

Andreas Ahrens, Ojaras Purvinis and Jelena Zaščerinska
Abstract: Simulation models allow predicting the development of real situations in various technical, business and social systems. However, many real situations in business environment are of bursty nature. Buyers often appear concentrated or, in other words, bursty. Different approaches for analysing buyers’ behaviour have been developed. One of these approaches focuses on analysis of gaps between buyers, and the buyers’ scenario is completely described by the sequence of gaps. The present research is interdisciplinary, namely telecommunications and business management. The methodology of the present contribution is built on adaptation of gap distribution functions from data transmission theory in telecommunications to bursty business process in business management. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate inter-connections between different gap distribution functions such as Weibull, Exponential and Wilhelm as well as to compare different gap distribution functions for their suitability when analysing bursty processes. Furthermore, this contribution provides the mathematical description of gap processes. The comparison results of different gap distribution functions are presented. The theoretical results are confirmed by practical implementation in agent-based simulation environment.
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Paper Nr: 24
Title:

Trust Dynamics: A Case-study on Railway Sensors
Authors:

Marcin Lenart, Andrzej Bielecki, Marie-Jeanne Lesot, Teodora Petrisor and Adrien Revault d’Allonnes
Abstract: Sensors constitute information providers which are subject to imperfections and assessing the quality of their outputs, in particular the trust that can be put in them, is a crucial task. Indeed, timely recognising a low-trust sensor output can greatly improve the decision making process at the fusion level, help solving safety issues and avoiding expensive operations such as either unnecessary or delayed maintenance. In this framework, this paper considers the question of trust dynamics, i.e. its temporal evolution with respect to the information flow. The goal is to increase the user understanding of the trust computation model, as well as to give hints about how to refine the model and set its parameters according to specific needs. Considering a trust computation model based on three dimensions, namely reliability, likelihood and credibility, the paper proposes a protocol for the evaluation of the scoring method, in the case when no ground truth is available, using realistic simulated data to analyse the trust evolution at the local level of a single sensor. After a visual and formal analysis, the scoring method is applied to real data at a global level to observe interactions and dependencies among multiple sensors.
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Area 3 - Security and Privacy in Sensor Networks

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 21
Title:

A Stranded Unshielded Twisted Pair Modeling for Online Fault Location using OMTDR-based Diagnosis Sensor
Authors:

Wafa Ben Hassen, Moussa Kafal and Esteban Cabanillas
Abstract: Despite the worldwide use of stranded Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cables, scientific references dealing with accurate calculation of distributed parameters of such transmission lines are generally missing, especially in high frequency applications where skin and proximity effects are present. On the other hand, reflectometry is a high frequency method that relies on wave propagation in a cable under test for fault diagnosis. In this context, this paper proposes a distributed parameters model for the lossy transmission line of a stranded UTP cable including the pitch of twist and frequency dependent effects to evaluate as faithfully as possible the reflectometry response in such cables. The developed model is validated with 3D-electromagnetic simulations using Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR). For online diagnosis, Orthognal Multi-Tone Time Domain Reflectometry is performed thanks to its capacity to control bandwidth and enable sensors fusion. In complex wiring networks, the developed model is performed to evaluate the performance of OMTDR-based diagnosis sensor including a Xilinx Zynq 7010 FPGA, 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC).
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Area 4 - Sensor Networks Software, Architectures and Applications

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 6
Title:

Real-Time Encoding/Decoding for Pairwise Communication Over an Unreliable Sensor Network
Authors:

Daniel Graham, Arnold Yim, Gang Zhou and Weizhen Mao
Abstract: The length of time that a wireless sensor can be deployed is limited by its internal power supply. To increase the deployment lifetime of these sensors we must find ways to conserve power. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that reduces the amount of energy the transceiver consumes by compressing the bytes that are sent and received over the network. The algorithm compresses a data stream by exploiting its temporal locality and is designed to function efficiently on an unreliable network in real-time. A stream is compressed by using fewer bits to represent elements that frequently recur. We evaluate the proposed compression algorithm using a collection of independently collected traces from the crawdad database. We calculated the compression ratio for each trace and found that we were able to reduce the number of bytes transmitted by an average of 60%, resulting in a 30% increase in energy savings.
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Paper Nr: 27
Title:

City of the Future: Urban Monitoring based on Smart Sensors and Open Technologies
Authors:

Robert Schima, Mathias Paschen, Peter Dietrich, Jan Bumberger and Tobias Goblirsch
Abstract: Developments in the field of microelectronics and the increasing willingness to use open technologies offer a variety of opportunities to significantly increase both understanding and public participation in the sustainable design of our cities and living spaces. Urban environmental monitoring on the basis of smart sensors and open technologies with the participation of citizens and local actors not only allows a better understanding of urban transformation processes but also increases the acceptance and resilience of a sustainable urban development towards the city of the future. What will the cities of the future look like? What is certain is that the future of cities will become more digital, with sensors, apps and citizens networking. So, how can smart sensors and open technologies help us better understand our environment? What do we need to know about our environment and the city we live in? Based on the developments of recent years, it is now a matter of course to book tickets for buses and trains with your smart phone or to look for the best restaurant. But what if citizens and local actors want to play an active role in urban development or monitoring?
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Area 5 - Wireless Sensor Networks

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 9
Title:

Distributed Range-based Localization for Swarm Robot Systems using Sensor-fusion Technique
Authors:

Daisuke Inoue, Daisuke Murai, Yasuhiro Ikuta and Hiroaki Yoshida
Abstract: Herein, we present a localization method for swarm robot systems that relies solely on measured distances from surrounding robots. Using the sensor fusion technique, an exteroceptive estimation method based on the measured distance is dynamically coupled with a simple proprioceptive estimation that uses a robot’s own dynamical properties. Our method strictly preserves the locality of algorithm. The results of numerical simulations for several scenarios show that our proposed method is more accurate that conventional methods.
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Paper Nr: 19
Title:

The Impact of Diverse Execution Strategies on Incremental Code Updates for Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors:

Kai Lehniger and Stefan Weidling
Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) may require code updates for a variety of reasons, such as fixing bugs, closing security holes or extending functionality. WSNs typically have limited resources available and wireless updates are costly in terms of energy and can lead to early battery failure. The idea of incremental code updates is to conserve energy by reusing the existing code image on the node and disseminating only a delta file that is generated by differencing algorithms, which can be used to reconstruct the new image. Beyond these differencing algorithms, there are other strategies to minimize the delta, e.g., reconstructing only the changed parts of the image. This paper points out possible implications of diverse execution strategies and gives suggestions. In addition to the usual delta size, the impact on the flash memory was considered. The presented results can be used to select a fitting strategy for a given use case.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 18
Title:

A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Distributed Collision-free MAC Protocols for Underwater Sensor Networks
Authors:

Faisal Alfouzan, Alireza Shahrabi, Seyed Mohammad Ghoreyshi and Tuleen Boutaleb
Abstract: The design of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for UWSNs poses many challenges because of their long propagation delay, high mobility, limited bandwidth, and high bit error rate. Due to these unique acoustic channel characteristics, most contention-based MAC protocols are costly. Thus, collisions and retransmissions should be efficiently handled at the MAC layer in order to reduce the energy cost and to improve throughput and fairness across the network. As a consequence, they do not perform as efficiently as their achieved performance in terrestrial networks. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of three recently reported distributed collision-free MAC protocols; namely, ED-MAC, DL-MAC, and GC-MAC under various operational conditions. An extensive simulation study is carried out to compare the performance of these MAC protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio (PDR), throughput, and energy consumption with different scenarios (narrow and shallow networks) under varying traffic rates and numbers of nodes. Our study results showed that ED-MAC reaches the best energy efficiency in a narrow scenario with a light load than DL-MAC and GC-MAC protocols. While DL-MAC is a suitable choice for both scenarios among others in terms of flexibility. In terms of reliability and scalability, GC-MAC achieves the best performance in both scenarios than other protocols.
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Paper Nr: 20
Title:

Efficient Cluster based Routing Protocol for Collaborative Body Sensor Networks
Authors:

Nadine Boudargham, Jacques Bou Abdo, Jacques Demerjian, Christophe Guyeux and Abdallah Makhoul
Abstract: Collaborative Body Sensor Networks (CBSNs) are collection of Body Sensor Networks that move in a given area and collaborate, interact and exchange data between each other to identify group activity, perceive events detected by group of individuals, and monitor the status of single and multiple persons. Even though some routing algorithms were proposed for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Body Sensor Networks (BSNs), very few studies were found to cover routing in CBSNs. In this paper, we propose a robust cluster based scheme that increases the routing efficiency through the three steps of the routing process: cluster formation, cluster head election, and routing operation of data to the Base Station (BS). MATLAB simulations are performed to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm to other existing routing schemes. Results show that the proposed scheme outperforms others in terms of delay, energy consumption, and packet drop percentage, and therefore succeeds in addressing CBSN challenges.
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Paper Nr: 17
Title:

Internet of Entities (IoE): A Blockchain-based Distributed Paradigm for Data Exchange between Wireless-based Devices
Authors:

Roberto Saia, Salvatore Carta, Diego Reforgiato Recupero and Gianni Fenu
Abstract: The exponential growth of wireless-based solutions, such as those related to the mobile smart devices (e.g., smart-phones and tablets) and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, has lead to countless advantages in every area of our society. Such a scenario has transformed the world a few decades back, dominated by latency, into a new world based on an efficient real-time interaction paradigm. Recently, cryptocurrency has contributed to this technological revolution, whose fulcrum is a decentralization model and a certification function offered by the so-called blockchain infrastructure, which makes it possible to certify the financial transactions, anonymously. This paper aims to indicate a possible approach able to exploit this challenging scenario synergistically by introducing a novel blockchain-based distributed paradigm for data exchange between wireless-based devices defined Internet of Entities (IoE). It is based on two core elements with interchangeable roles, entities and trackers, which can be implemented by using existing infrastructures and devices, such as those related to smart-phones, tablets, and IoT systems. The employment of the blockchain-based distributed paradigm allows our approach ensuring the anonymization and immutability of the involved data, which is key in many scenarios and domains (e.g. financial applications, health and legal applications dealing with personal and sensitive data), requirements more and more searched in recent innovations. The possibility to exchange data among a huge number of devices gives rise to a novel and widely exploitable data environment, whose applications are possible in different domains, such as, in Security, eHealth, and Smart Cities.
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Paper Nr: 23
Title:

Lifetime and Buffer-Size Optimization for RF Powered Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors:

Bikrant Koirala and Keshav Dahal
Abstract: Radio Frequency-Energy Harvesting (RF-EH) system usually incorporates ‘harvest-store-use’ mechanism, i.e. the harvested RF energy is first stored in an energy buffer and when the stored energy level is sufficient enough to power an application it is then supplied to the device. To improve the network’s performance in terms of lifetime and buffer capacity, it is crucial to develop a model for RF powered Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which considers source-load relations, buffer size and ambient conditions within the context of Energy Neutral Operation (ENO) and minimum energy wastage. In this paper, we propose a model for RF powered WSNs that makes use of available RF energy with variations in maximum and minimum energy levels for two different worst case scenarios encompassing ENO and buffer requirements. We develop an algorithm based on the proposed model to find the optimum energy consumption rate of each sensor nodes that would ensure maximum lifetime of the WSN with minimum buffer capacity. We verified our approach by comparing the results with all other possible consumption rates. We also performed a comparative analysis to find the effect of available RF energy fluctuation in the individual sensor nodes’ lifetime.
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Paper Nr: 26
Title:

Geolocalization in Smart Environment
Authors:

Joseph Merhej, Jacques Demerjian, Karla Fares, Jacques Bou Abdo and Abdallah Makhoul
Abstract: Nowadays, wireless indoor positioning systems have become very familiar, and widespread all over the world. They are successfully used in many applications including tracking objects e.g. Firemen who usually face life-threatening situations. Indoor positioning systems become critically convenient in such scenarios. This paper deals with the tracking of a group of firemen during their mission in order to have a real-time visibility of their coordinates. These firemen are armed by smart sensors and are, at the same time, active in a smart environment containing referenced nodes. This paper will propose two approaches: ‘Centralized Emission’, and ‘Broadcast Emission’ and will describe the proposed method to calculate the firemen’s coordinates.
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