Wireless Sensor Network for Forestry Applications: Overcoming the Uncertainty

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Department of Computer Science and Engineering


PhD Thesis Defence


Title: "Wireless Sensor Network for Forestry Applications:
Overcoming the Uncertainty"

By

Mr. Yuan He


Abstract

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a self-organized wireless network that 
consists of a number of sensor nodes. The deployment of a number of sensor 
nodes enables people to monitor and interact with the physical world. Forest is 
one of those environments where WSNs are applied. Under the circumstances of 
global climate changes and environmental pollution, WSNs for forestry 
applications attract increasing attention in recent years.

This dissertation research focuses on developing techniques that make the 
sensor network systems more applicable and efficient for practical forestry 
applications. I have been working on GreenOrbs, a long-term large-scale WSN 
system deployed in the forest. In order to overcome the uncertainty emerging 
from the forestry deployments, I address several key issues, including 
error-resilient localization for networked sensor nodes against irregular 
wireless signals, forwarding-quality-aware data collection against unstable 
link and node behavior, and quantitative canopy closure estimates against 
error-prone sensor readings.

I develop theoretical principles, design practical protocols, and implement my 
ideas with GreenOrbs. I evaluate those approaches through real-world 
large-scale experiments and trace-driven simulations. The results validate 
their effectiveness and efficiency in overcoming the uncertainty. The proposed 
approaches can be further applied to other fields.


Date:			Monday, 31 May 2010

Time:			3:30pm – 5:30pm

Venue:			Room 5501
 			Lifts 25/26

Chairman:		Prof. Huihe Qiu (MECH)

Committee Members:	Prof. Yunhao Liu (Supervisor)
 			Prof. Lei Chen
 			Prof. Lionel Ni
                         Prof. Zhenyang Lin (CHEM)
                         Prof. Weijia Jia (Comp. Sci., CityU.)


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