Towards wireless sensor network softwarization

The role of Internet of Things (IoT) in facilitating connectivity of the wireless sensor network (WSN) to the remote server or cloud over the Internet encourages the formation of a highly complex system. This has significant potential for WSN softwarization or open flow through software defined network (SDN). It enables the interaction between the physical and virtual sensor networks resulting in the ability to allow for flexibility within the physical system to adapt with the service requirements. In this paper, system architecture of a typical WSN governed by remote server or the cloud through the IoT is proposed. The organization offers avenue for a flexible system which is capable of reacting to dynamic changes of monitored process conditions. By employing network simulator tools to derive the network performance information based on the recent historical data of a Physical Sensor Cloud (PSC), realistic prediction of network performance can be made, and adjustment to the physical network can be proposed. This paper reports the concept and preliminary experiences of implementing an organization driving towards WSN softwarization. The organization have the potential for facilitating the dynamic interaction between the PSC and the remote management software including the Virtual Sensor Cloud (VSC). This dynamic interaction could help in getting the PSC to react to the dynamics of the monitored phenomena.

I. Introduction

Rapid scientific and technological progress have been made in the emerging fields of IoT (Cloud computing) and WSN in recent years [1], [2]. Research work on 6LoWPAN-based IoT-sensor networks and cloud computing has gained enormous interest and widespread attention within the sensor network domain. Through a standard interface such as 6LoWPAN/IPv6, the combination of ‘Cloud computing’ and ‘PSC’ can serve as an efficient infrastructural framework for WSN-IoT integration and Big Data management [3] – [8]. For large-scale federated PSC, each constituent sensor cloud can be governed by 6LoWPAN based IoT router/ gateway which facilitates connectivity to the Internet. Implementation of CoAP application layer protocol over 6LoWPAN gateway enables easy and direct access to web applications for the PSCs. It also offers support for multicast and reduces overhead as compared to the HTTP protocol[9].