Synchronized Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks for Real-Time and Energy-Aware Sensing Applications, Schriftenreihe Advances in Mechatronics, Bd. 36

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of multiple sensor nodes which are limited in energy supply and computational power, but have to provide robust data Transmission from a data source to a data sink. The complexity of the Networks can reache from simple Point-to-Point Connections to widely distributed mesh-networks of hundred of nodes.

In the first Topic covered in this book we investigate real-time WSNs in simple star topology for closed Loop control applications with sampling rates up to 100 Hz. The most challenging criterion is the relability of the data Transmission to keep the control loop stable. A proposal to improve reliability in combination with reduced energy consumption is predented and evaluated.

In the second Topic we propose a novel synchronization method between multiple sensor nodes operating in any topology or spatial Arrangement, with low computational complexity. The distributed synchronization algorithnm is performed on two Levels: coarse and fine synchronization algorithm is performend on Levels: coarse and fine synchronization. With the used low-power and low-performance Hardware we reached synchronization deviations below 1 us.