RESEARCH CHALLENGES IN WIRELESS SENSOR AND ACTOR NETWORKS


IAN F. AKYILDIZ

Broadband and Wireless Networking Lab
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332

Tel.: 404-894-5141; Fax.: 404-894-7883
E_mail: ian@ece.gatech.edu
http://www.ece.gatech.edu/research/labs/bwn


SUMMARY


Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs)
refer to a group of sensors and actors (actuators) linked by wireless medium 
to perform distributed sensing and actuation tasks.
The aim of this talk is to give an overview about research challenges in WSANs.
First, the sensing and actuation tasks are explained and
general differences between classical sensor and WSANs are pointed out.
Further, the physical architecture of WSANs is presented and research challenges 
and requirements due to the presence of actuators are explored.
In particular, the challenges for the design and development of sensor/actuator
network communication protocols are presented.

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BIOGRAPHY OF "IAN F. AKYILDIZ"

IAN F. AKYILDIZ  is Ken Byers Distinguished Chair 
Professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 
Georgia Institute of Technology and Director of 
Broadband and Wireless Networking Laboratory 

He has published over two-hundred technical papers in journals 
and conference proceedings. He is the Editor-in-Chief of 
Computer Networks (Elsevier Science) and for the newly launched
AdHoc Networks Journal (Elsevier Science).

Dr. Akyildiz is an IEEE FELLOW (1995), an ACM FELLOW (1996).
He served as a National Lecturer for ACM 
from 1989 until 1998 and received the ACM Outstanding 
Distinguished Lecturer Award for 1994.

Dr. Akyildiz received the 1997 IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize 
award (IEEE Communications Society) for his paper entitled 
"Multimedia Group Synchronization Protocols for
Integrated Services Architectures"
published in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications 
(JSAC) in January 1996.

Dr. Akyildiz received the 2002 IEEE Harry M. Goode Memorial award
(IEEE Computer Society) with the citation "for significant and
pioneering contributions to advanced architectures and protocols
for wireless and satellite networking".

He also received the 2002 IEEE Best Tutorial Paper 
award (IEEE Communications Society) for his paper entitled 
"A Survey on Wireless Sensor Networks"
published in the IEEE Communications Magazine in July 2002.

Dr. Akyildiz further received the 2003 ACM SIGMOBILE award for
his outstanding research contributions to the wireless networking field.

His current research interests are in 
Sensor Networks, Wireless Networks, InterPlaNetary Internet.