Maintenance free Sensor Networks for Building, Habitat, and Infrastructure Monitoring

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks are groups of small computers dispersed in an area that continuously monitor and record the physical conditions of an environment and wirelessly report that data. These networks, often called "the Internet-of-Things," underly every facet of our lives; ranging from building monitoring systems that sense occupancy and temperature and control HVAC, to habitat and wildlife monitoring systems that observe behaviors of animals and long term changes in the environment. For decades these sensing systems have relied primarily on batteries-much like the one in our phones-to power all activities. However, batteries are not a viable energy storage solution for the tiny devices at the edge of a ecologically sustainable Internet of Things. Batteries are expensive, bulky, hazardous, and wear out after a few years (even rechargeables). Replacing and disposing of billions or trillions of dead batteries per year would be expensive and irresponsible. By leaving the batteries behind and surviving off energy harvested from the environment, tiny intermittently powered sensors can monitor objects in hard to reach places maintenance free for decades. Batteryless sensing will revolutionize computing and open up new application domains from infrastructure monitoring and wildlife tracking to wearables, healthcare, and space exploration. In this talk I will give a brief survey of wireless sensor networks and the Internet-of-Things, highlighting those applications especially relevant to Environmental and Civil Engineering. Then I will discuss my own work moving the sensor networks paradigm towards a sustainable future; including a high level overview of the computational problems that must be overcome, and the platforms I have developed. Finally, I will close with a open-ended discussion of the applications related to health, habitat, and environmental monitoring that this new class of tiny, battery-free computers could enable.

Biography: Josiah Hester is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern University Josiah joined Northwestern in Fall 2017 after completing his PhD in Computer Science at Clemson University. Josiah's research enables sophisticated, sustainable sensing on the tiny devices at the edge of the Internet of Things. These devices enable new application domains from infrastructure monitoring and wildlife tracking to wearables, healthcare, and space exploration. Josiah explores and develops new hardware designs, software techniques, tools, and programming abstractions so that developers can easily design, debug, and deploy intricate batteryless sensor network applications that work in spite of frequent power failures. His work has received a Best Paper Award and Best Paper Nomination from ACM SenSys, and two Best Poster Awards. He was also named the Outstanding PhD Student in Computer Science for 2016 by the School of Computing at Clemson University.