Communication Buses and Protocols for Sensor Networks

• Main Authors: Andrew Mason, Junwei Zhou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2002-07-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: Sensor bus; Sensor network; Microsystem architecture; Wireless sensor networks
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/2/7/244/

This paper overviews existing digital communication buses which are commonly used in sensor networks, discusses sensor network architectures, and introduces a new sensor bus for low power microsystem applications. The new intra-module multi-element microsystem (IM2) bus is nine-line interface with 8b serial data which implements several advanced features such as power management and plug-n-play while maintaining minimum hardware overhead at the sensor node. Finally, some issues in wireless sensor networking are discussed. The coverage of these issues provides a guideline for choosing the appropriate bus for different sensor network applications.