University of Wisconsin Wireless and Sensor Networks (WiSeNet) Consortium

Description of the Consortium:

Technological advances have made it possible to build and embed smart, low-cost, networked wireless sensing and actuation devices for a wide range of applications. Such networked sensing devices provide unprecedented levels of monitoring, instrumentation, and control for building automation, homeland security, manufacturing, robotics, and healthcare. The number of web-enabled devices is expected to grow from 3 to 14 billion within the next five years, driven by the proliferation of wireless sensors with ubiquitous Internet connections.

For example, next generation office buildings are likely to incorporate a variety of smart devices, not only for increasing energy efficiency, but also enhancing safety, comfort, automation, and productivity through context-aware computing. Electronic lighting and temperature control can reduce energy consumption by tailoring each person's work environment to their tasks or preferences, while maximizing the use of natural sun light. Likewise, ad hoc wireless communication networks, coupled with early warning systems, can drastically reduce losses during disasters such as fires and earthquakes by providing vital support to search and rescue teams. Besides home, industrial, and habitat monitoring and control applications, uses of sensing and actuation devices have been envisioned for many biomedical applications such as remote patient monitoring using in-body monitors and regulators. Furthermore, proposed applications to security and military applications such as surveillance, target detection, classification, and tracking have already shown much promise.

Consortium Goals:

The Consortium will address the many multi-faceted challenges in designing and seamlessly integrating wireless sensors for practical uses. Our initial technology focus areas will include suitable architectures for networked wireless communication, network and application security, data privacy, fault tolerance, distributed algorithms and signal processing, optimized communication protocols for emerging RF front-ends, and low-power design at circuit, device, system, algorithm, protocol, and application levels. The goals of the Consortium include:

To gather collaborative expertise from multiple disciplines such as application areas (civil, environmental, mechanical, and biomedical engineering) and technology areas (electrical and computer engineering and computer sciences).
To facilitate interactions between UW researchers and students and industrial partners to address challenges in designing and deploying such networked embedded systems.
To develop strategic partnerships to access federal funding.
To create a non-competitive forum for member companies to share expertise and defray development costs in this area.
To organize company-specific projects and professional development events such as focused sponsored research, workshops, seminars, and conferences.
To provide member companies access to well-trained UW graduates.

Overview

University of Wisconsin Wireless and Sensor Networks (WiSeNet) Consortium