Lightweight Management Framework (LMF) for a Heterogeneous Wireless Network for Landslide Detection

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are networks of low cost nodes with minimal power consumption, processing capabilities and maintenance, that can be used for wide area environmental monitoring. This paper discusses the main innovations, challenges, solutions and deployment experiences in designing a Lightweight Management Framework (LMF) for a real-time, 24/7 operational, heterogeneous network. The network must reliably deliver data continuously from a set of deep earth probe sensors in a remote hilly rainforest area to a data management, analysis, and visualization center at the University campus hundreds of miles away. This framework provides the ability to incorporate different heterogeneous networks such as 802.15.4, 802.11b/g, VSAT, GPRS, GSM, Internet and also proprietary wireless sensor network and hardware architectures. It also handles various network failures, data corruption, packet loss, and congestion problems. The data is analyzed to determine the factor of safety of the landslide prone area using landslide simulation software, stream data in real-time to the internet, and give automatic warnings. The architecture has been implemented in a real-time wireless sensor network deployed in the Western Ghats of Kerala, India to detect landslides. The architecture is operational in the deployment site since February 2008 and was used to issue landslide warnings during the July 2009 monsoon.