Mathew Laibowitz, Joseph A. Paradiso

Abstract

Distributed sensor networks offer many new capabilities for monitoring environments with applicability to medical, industrial, military, environmental, and experiential fields. By making the system mobile, we increase the application space for the distributed sensor network mainly by providing context-dependent deployment, continual relocatability, automatic node recovery, and a larger area of coverage. In existing models, the addition of actuation to sensor network nodes has exacerbated three of the main problems with these types of systems: power usage, node size, and node complexity. This paper introduces a proposed solution to these problems in the form of parasitically actuated nodes that gain their mobility and local navigational intelligence by selectively engaging and disengaging from mobile hosts in their environment. This paper also illustrates the work that has begun to design, implement, evaluate, and demonstrate a parasitically actuated wireless sensor network as a solution to these problems and to explore new applications and features of a system with this type of mobility..