Abstract:

Research on the topology of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is mainly focused on modelling and analysis of methods to optimise the connections structure. However, this type of approach has rarely been used by network designers, and sensor systems that have already been deployed and are under development in urban environments often differ from the patterns proposed in the literature and the available models. In turn, the development of various wireless technologies that enable the empirical development and popularisation of new solutions has also helped to reinforce this particular trend. It is supposed that open access to real data from different types of devices will allow to understand the nature of data, extract and solve problems in such heterogeneous networks. Analyzing the topology of such networks and diagnosing problems should therefore be based on data obtained from real networks. Data obtained from different types of devices will allow both to understand changes in network typologies and to identify problems in such heterogeneous networks.

This paper presents selected major current research topics related to urban sensor networks, followed by a network-modeling proof of concept, based on publicly available real-time geographical location data of the nodes.