Abstract
Sensor Networks consist of multiple devices equipped
with some sensing apparatus. The devices in the network may be
homogeneous or heterogeneous, yet they will coordinate in order
to accomplish a pre-defined task. With the rising interest in the
use of Sensor Networks in various applications, the sensor nodes
need to subsist in a dynamic environment and react in a timely
fashion to environmental stimuli. Unfortunately, the current
paradigm in Sensor Network relies on static tasking of the nodes
to support a common task; which ultimately leads to deployment
of various networks to cover a common area so long as the tasks
and owners of these networks differ. Straying away from this
paradigm, our work introduces a framework to enable nodes to
support dynamic tasking in a dynamic environment by pushing
computation to the edge through FPGA-based reconfigurable
nodes with increased processing power. Furthermore, we contend
that the sensing apparatus available on the nodes limits the range
of applications that such nodes will support. As such,
reconfigurability of the nodes can yield the most efficient and
responsive hardware implementation of algorithms to support
common tasks of applications. The benefits of our approach are
highlighted through the introduction of a target-tracking node
that is reconfigurable and provides increased response time to
stimuli.