Implementing sensor networks using sensor motes and J-DSP

Distributed wireless sensor networks (WSN) are being proposed for various applications including defense, security, smart stages, and other. The introduction of hardware wireless sensors in a signal processing education setting can serve as a paradigm for data acquisition, collaborative signal processing or simply as a platform for obtaining, processing, and analyzing real-life real-time data. In this paper, we present a software interface that enables the Java-DSP (J-DSP) visual programming environment to communicate in a two-way manner with a wireless sensor network. This interface was developed by writing nesC code that enables J-DSP to issue commands to multiple wireless sensor motes, activate specific transducers, and analyze data using any of the existing J-DSP signal processing functions in real time. A series of exercises were developed to provide hardware experiences to signals and systems and DSP undergraduate students. The interface, the exercises, and some preliminary assessment results are discussed in the paper.