Border Control Using Wireless Sensor Technology - Research Paper Example

Border Control Using Wireless Sensor Technology Introduction Wireless Sensor Networks, WSN, is an emerging technologythat uses distributed sensors with a communications infrastructure to monitor or record environmental conditions. They are being widely applied in security, military, and agriculture owing to their automated ability to monitor the environment and relay required data while requiring minimum human operation. In border control, they are preferred in that they can monitor borders without requiring physical personnel and again, they are not detectable by intruders. The following research study will analyze border control using wireless sensor networks with regards to their architecture, application, and efficiency. Borders are critical features of any state since they define territory. Individualterritories on the other hand have specific rules and acceptable ways of conduct which must be protected. As such, it is important that borders should be protected so as to keep away intruders such as illegal immigrants, smugglers, and terrorists. WSNs are being embraced in surveillance because they are cheaper and more effective as compared to traditional surveillance methods such as radar or satellite (Wang &Guo 358). Wireless Sensor System Architecture Wireless border control sensor network architecture is made up of three main components: sensor nodes, gateways, and task managers. Sensor nodes are the components at the end of the architecture which capture the data at the border (through sensing). They are also referred to as the sink, source, or actuators. As such, movement for example at unauthorized areas can be sensed from the sensor nodes. Several sensors are situated differently and are usually interconnected. The sensor nodes may do some calculations before transmitting the data at the border though a gateway (Kalita, &Kar 2). Gateways on the other hand are proxies for the wireless border control systems. They allow the system administrators to interface Motes to some relay points such as personal digital assistants and personal computers for monitoring. In short, all the interconnected sensor nodes relay their information to the administrator through the same proxy (gateway) (Maharrey, Lim, &Gao 7). Gateways may be active (allow nodes to actively relay data to the system (gateway server), passive (allows gateway to send requests to sensor nodes), or hybrid (performs tasks of both active and passive gateways) (Villegas, Tang, &Qian 4). The task managers are the receiving ends of the wireless border control sensor network architecture. After the sensor notes acquire information from the environment, they relay it through the gateways into the task managers through satellite or internet links. They comprise of data service and processing. In short, this is where the information from the sensor nodes at the border is received and can be analyzed or processed remotely or locally (Phoha, La Porta, & Griffin 267). Wireless sensor node architecture Sensor nodes in wireless border control networks can store data, communicate with the servers, do some computing, and most importantly do the actuation (sensing) at the border. A basic sensor node’s architecture comprises of a power supply, communication device, actuators and sensors, memory, and controller (Su &Cayirci 373). The power supply provides the energy necessary for the node to work. The communication device is responsible for the sending or receiving of data or information over a wireless network and also between individual nodes (Gauger 267). The communication between different nodes is enabled by radio frequencies.According to Karl and Willig (21), radio frequency is preferred as the communication medium in border control because it supports high data rates over long ranges while requiring reasonable energy as well as acceptable error rates.The sensors and actuators are the actual interfaces which are placed in the physical environment with the aim of capturing the required data (sensing). In short, they control or observe the environment’s physical parameters for interferences such as movement at the border points they are placed. The memory part of this architecture stores immediate data and/or the programs required in the sensing and control (Bhattacharya 85). Finally, the controllers are used to process the relevant information and they have arbitrary code executing ability. They are the central part of the sensor node architecture. In wireless border control systems, Intel Armstrong and Atmel processors are the most commonly used microcontrollers (Portilla, Castro, Torre, &Riesgo 328). The application At the endpoints (sensor nodes), interference at border points such as movement or physical contact will be detected by the actuators or sensors. This information will be processed by the controllers and if it is the targeted data (as analyzed by the immediate programs in the memory), this information will be relayed to other sensor nodes through radio frequencies. From the nodes, information will be passed on to the gateway which combines several nodes. The gateway, which is usually a wireless internet-based proxy, will receive the information from the sensor nodes and transmit it to the task managers. At this point, the task manager receivers may be designed to give immediate response such as alarms to alert the system administrator. The task managers allow the administrator to monitor the border from distant places and receive real-time information such as border intrusion. Thereafter, necessary measures may be inflicted without the intruders noticing. Shortest distance algorithm The efficiency in terms of energy and sensitivity is critical to any wireless sensor network. However, border control wireless sensor technologies require higher efficiency owing to the nature of control and sensitivity that they handle. Therefore, setbacks such as short lifetime, high energy consumption, and delays should be minimized (Rigi, Antony, Saju, &Padikkal 408). One of the proven methods of achieving efficiency is the short distance algorithm. As highlighted in the WSN architecture, several nodes are interconnected and their collective information is relayed to the gateways. In this case, it means that information from one node will have to pass the next node and to the next until it gets to the gateway. In this way, a delay occurs when the topology has more nodes. Therefore to reduce the delay, new topologies are made such that this distance is reduced. To achieve this, shortest-path algorithm is used, that is, designing topologies such that the nodes transmit data directly to the gateway. In this way, the distance covered by the information before reaching the gateway and finally task manager is reduced significantly (Youssef, Younis, & Arisha 2). Figure 1 below summarizes the shortest-path algorithm: Fig 1. The shortest-path algorithm reduces transmission distance to achieve efficiency Conclusion As the study shows, border control is mandatory in any country. In the light of this, some countries are embracing wireless sensor networks to monitor and control their borders. Wireless system sensor networks in border control are made up of sensor nodes, gateways, and task managers which collectively add up to the task of securing or monitoring borders. Sensor nodes as part of WSN are important in that they do the actuation by sensing the respective data and relaying it to the task manager through the gateways. Finally, the sensitivity of WSNs is achieved by use of the shortest distance algorithm which ensures delay in the transmission time is minimized. Works Cited Bhattacharya, Sangeeta, Achieving Application Quality of Service in Resource-constrained Wireless Sensor Networks.ProQuest, 2008. Print. Gauger, Matthias, Integration of Wireless Sensor Networks, Logos Verlag, 2010, Print. Kalita, Hemanta, &Kar, Avijit, “Wireless Sensor Network Security Analysis”, International Journal of Next-Genertation Networks 1. 1 (2009): 1-10. Karl, Holger, &Willig, Andreas, Protocols and Architectures for Wireless Sensor Networks.John Wiley & Sons,2007. Print. Maharrey, Brandon, Lim, Alvin, &Gao, Song, “Interconnection between IP Networks and Wireless Sensor Networks”, International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks 2012. 1 (2012). Phoha, Shashi, La Porta, Thomas & Griffin, Christopher, Sensor Network Operations, John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Print. Portilla, Jorge, Castro, Angel, Torre, Eduardo, &Riesgo, Teresa, “A Modular Architecture for Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks”, Journal of Universla Computer Science 12. 3 (2006): 328-339. Rigi, Mis, Antony, Ancy, Saju, Shalinu, &Padikkal, Sachin, “Shortest path routing algorithm in wireless sensor networks- A Review”, International Journal of Scientific Research & Education 2. 3 (2014): 407-413. Su, Akyildiz, &Cayirci, Sankarasunramaniam, “Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey”, Computer Networks 38. 1 (2002): 393-422. Villegas, Miguel, Tang, Seok, &Qian, Yi, “Wireless Sensor Network Communication Architecture for Wide-Area Large Scale Soil Moisture Estimation and Wetlands Monitoring”, National Science Foundation. (2012):1-24. Wang, Xue, Li Cui, and ZhongwenGuo.Advanced Technologies in Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks: Proceedings of the 7th China Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks. , 2014. Youssef, Moustafa, Younis, Mohamed, & Arisha, Khaled, “A Constrained Shortest-Path Emergy-Aware Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks”, Honeywell International, 2010. Read More