A Service-Based Universal Application Interface for Ad Hoc Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

A set of services and interface primitives to be offered to an application programmer of an ad hoc wireless sensor and actuator network (AWSAN) is described. As the definition of sockets has made the use of communication services in the Internet independent of the underlying protocol stack, communication medium and even operating system, the proposed application interface, called the “sensor network services platform” (SNSP), identifies an abstraction that is offered to any sensor network application and supported by any sensor network platform. The SNSP builds on the query/command paradigm already used in several sensor network implementations and further adds time synchronization, location and naming services that support the communication and coordination among application components.