International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, November 2012 Vol. 3, No.

9 ISSN: 1837-7823

A Study on Operating Systems for Wireless Sensor Networks

Dr .Mohammed Ali Hussain#, Dr. K. Satya Rajesh##, Md. Abdul Ahad###
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Assoc.Professor, Dept. of Electronics and Computer Engineering, KL University, Guntur, A.P., India.
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Assoc.Professor, Dept. of Electronics and Computer Engineering, KL University, Guntur, A.P., India.

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Asst.Professor, Dept. of Electronics and Computer Engineering, KL University, Guntur, A.P., India.

Abstract
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are highly distributed networks consists of small, lightweight wireless nodes, deployed in large numbers to monitor the environment or system by the measurement of physical parameters such as temperature, pressure, or relative humidity. Some of the applications of wireless sensor networks includes military or border surveillance, health care, environment, industrial process control and so on. In this paper we provide an overview of operating systems for wireless sensor networks. An operating system is a user program that acts as intermediary between the user of the computer and the computer hardware. The main functions of operating system are process management, file management, memory management. Traditional operating systems are not suitable for wireless sensor networks because of constrained resources and diverse data centric applications. So we need new type of operating systems that works with sensor networks. KeywordsOperating System, Sink, Topology, Wireless sensor networks.

1. Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs)[1][2] are generally composed of one or more base stations(sinks) and also consists of sensor nodes scattered in a physical space. With integration of information sensing, computation, and wireless communication, the sensor nodes can sense physical information, process crude information, as well as report required information to the sink. The sink can also query sensor nodes for such information. WSNs have many distinctive features, which includes the following: 1. Unique Network Topology: Sensor nodes are generally organized into a flat or hierarchical, multi-hop or startree topology. The sink resides at the root of the tree is responsible for data collection and relaying to exterior networks. 2. Diverse Applications: WSNs can be used in different environment supporting diverse applications. For example- habitat monitoring, target tracking, security surveillance, etc..,. 3. Peculiar Traffic Characteristics: In WSNs, the primary traffic is flows from the sensor nodes to the sink. While querying, traffic flows from sink to sensor nodes. 4. Resource Constraints: Sensor nodes have limited resources which includes low computation capability, small memory, low wireless communication bandwidth, and limited and non-rechargeable battery. 5. Small Message Size: Messages in sensor networks usually have a small size compared to various existing networks. So there is usually no concept of segmenting a message in most applications under WSNs. In this paper we provide an overview of operating systems in wireless sensor networks. An operating system is a user program that acts as intermediary between the user of the computer and the computer hardware. The main functions of operating system are process management, file management, memory management. Traditional 32

International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, November 2012 Vol. 3, No. 9 ISSN: 1837-7823 operating systems[3][4] are not suitable for wireless sensor networks because of constrained resources and diverse data centric applications. So we need new type of operating systems that works with sensor networks.

2. Operating system Design Issues

WSNs need a new type of operating system to work with them. There are several issues to consider when designing new operating systems for wireless sensor networks:

A. Process management and Scheduling

The traditional OS provides separate memory space for each process. Each process maintains data and information in its own allocated space. But this method usually causes multiple data copying and context switching between processes. This is obviously not an energy efficient method for WSNs.

B. Memory Management
Memory is often allocated exclusively for each process or task in traditional operating systems, which is helpful for protection and security of the tasks. Since sensor nodes have only small memory, another approach, sharing, can reduce memory requirements.

C. Kernel Model
The event-driven and finite state machine (FSM) models have been used to design the micro kernels for WSNs. An event may comprise of receiving a packet, transmitting a packet, detection of an event of interest, alarms about energy depletion of a sensor node, and so on. The FSM-based model is convenient to realize concurrency, reactivity, and also synchronization.

D. Application Program Interface

Sensor nodes need to provide modular and general APIs for their diverse applications. The APIs should enable the applications access the underlying hardware.

E. Code upgrade and Reprogramming

Since the behavior of sensor nodes and their algorithms may need to be adjusted either for their functionality or for the energy conservation, the operating system should be able to reprogram and upgrade. Sensor operating system (SOS) should support the following functions: 1. The memory within WSNs is very limited. They may be from tens or hundreds of kilobytes. So the SOS Should be compact and small in size. 2. It should provide real-time support, since there are real-time applications. 3. It should provide efficient resource management mechanisms in order to allocate microprocessor time and limited memory. 4. It should support reliable and efficient code distribution since the functionality performed by the sensor nodes may need to be changed after deployment. 5. It should support power management, which helps to extend the system lifetime and improve its performance. Because the battery power of WSNs are very limited. 6. It should provide a generic programming interface up to sensor middleware or application software. This may allow access and control of hardware directly, as well as to optimize system performance.

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International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, November 2012 Vol. 3, No. 9 ISSN: 1837-7823

3. Sensor Operating Systems C. Contiki OS

Contiki[5] is an open source operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a particular focus on low-power wireless Internet of Things devices like Wireless sensor networks. Examples of where Contiki is used include street lighting systems, sound monitoring for smart cities, radiation monitoring systems, and alarm systems. Contiki was created by Adam Dunkels in 2003 and has been further developed by a worldwide team of developers from Atmel, Cisco, Enea, ETH, Redwire, RWTH Aachen University, Oxford University, SAP, Sensinode, SICS, ST Microelectronics, Zolertia, and many others. The name Contiki comes from Thor Heyerdahls famous Kon-Tiki raft. Despite providing multitasking and a built-in TCP/IP stack, Contiki only needs a few kilobytes of code and a few hundred bytes of RAM.

D. TinyOS
TinyOS[6] is a free and open source component-based operating system and platform targeting wireless sensor networks (WSNs). TinyOS is an embedded operating system written in the nesC programming language as a set of cooperating tasks and processes. It is intended to be incorporated into smartdust. TinyOS started as a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley in co-operation with Intel Research and Crossbow Technology, and has since grown to be an international consortium, the TinyOS Alliance. TinyOS applications are written in nesC, a dialect of the C language optimized for the memory limits of sensor networks. Its supplementary tools are mainly in the form of Java and shell script front-ends. Associated libraries and tools, such as the NesC compiler and Atmel AVR binutils toolchains, are mostly written in C. TinyOS programs are built out of software components, some of which present hardware abstractions. Components are connected to each other using interfaces. TinyOS provides interfaces and components for common abstractions such as packet communication, routing, sensing, actuation and storage.

E. MANTIS OS
The MANTIS Operating System (MOS)[7] is an open source embedded multithreaded operating system for wireless micro sensor platforms. MANIS gets its name from MultimodAl system for NeTworks of In-situ wireless Sensors. It is written in C. MANTIS is implemented in a lightweight RAM footprint that fits in less than 500 bytes of memory, this includes kernel, scheduler, and network stack. MOS has a power-efficient scheduler that sleeps the microcontroller when the sleep() function is called which reduces the consumption. A big part in the design features of MOS is its flexibility in the form of cross- platform support and ability to test on PCs, PDAs, and different micro sensor platforms. MOS supports remote management of in-situ sensors through dynamic reprogramming and remote login. It has a low barrier to entry in terms of programming for sensor networks. Also, MOS supports advanced sensor OS features like multimodal prototyping, dynamic reprogramming, and remote shells. MANTIS is still a work in progress, a few things need to be improved upon, low power management needs to be improved (though the sleep() function does help in saving energy, they are working on developing even more efficient ways as well), demonstrating reliability or code updated over the network, optimizing the size of these updates, and ensuring the security as well as the authenticity of updates need to be improved as well as a few other key things.

F. EYES OS
EYES OS [8] uses an eventdriven model and task mechanism to realize objectives like power and memory saving. It works in a simple sequence as follows: perform a computation, return a value, and enter the sleep mode. The task can be scheduled using a FIFO-, priority-, or deadline-based approach (such as EDF), and is triggered by events in a nonblocking manner. EYES OS defines an application programming interface (API) locally and for the network components. The local information component provides functions such as access to sensor node data, availability of resources and their status, and setting of parameters or variables in sensor nodes. The network component provides functions to transmit and receive data and to retrieve network information. In summary, EYES OS realizes two groups of functions: those that can be executed at boot time to upload software module, and those that can provide node localization information. EYES OS also provides an efficient code distribution mechanism with the following objectives: (1) to update the code on the sensor node, including the operating system; (2) to be resilient in case of packet loss during update; (3) to use as few communications and local resources as possible, and (4) to halt the application for a short period when updating. 34

International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, November 2012 Vol. 3, No. 9 ISSN: 1837-7823

G. Lite OS
LiteOS[9] is a real-time operating system (RTOS) from University of Illinois for use in sensor networks. LiteOS is a UNIX-like operating system that fits on memory-constrained sensor nodes. This operating system allows users to operate wireless sensor networks like operating Unix, which is easier for people with adequate Unix background. LiteOS provides a familiar programming environment based on UNIX, threads, and C. It follows a hybrid programming model that allows both event-driven and thread-driven programming. LiteOS is open source, written in C and runs on the Atmel based MicaZ and IRIS sensor networking platform.

F. Magnet OS
MagnetOS [10] is a distributed operating system for ad-hoc and sensor networks whose goal is to enable poweraware, adaptive, and easy-to-develop ad-hoc networking applications. The approach is to provide these properties through a single system image of a unified virtual machine to applications over an ad-hoc collection of heterogeneous nodes. MagnetOS automatically and transparently partitions applications into components and dynamically finds a placement of these components on nodes within the ad-hoc network to reduce energy consumption and increase system longevity. The goals of MagnetOS are (1) to adapt to the underlying resource and its changes in a stable manner, (2) to be efficient with respect to energy conservation, (3) to provide general abstraction for the applications, and (4) to be scalable for large networks.

G. Pic OS
PicOS [11] is written in C for a microcontroller with limited on-chip RAM (e.g., 4 kB). In PicOS, all tasks share the same global stack and act as coroutines with multiple entry points and implicit control transfer, which is different from classical multitasking approaches. In PicOS, each task is like a FSM where the state transition is triggered by events. The FSM approach is effective for reactive applications whose primary role is to respond to events rather than to process data or crunch numbers. The CPU cycle is multiplexed among multiple tasks, but the tasks can be preempted only at the FSM state boundary. It has few resource requirements and supports multitasking, a flat structure for processes- but perhaps not good for real-time applications.

4. Conclusion
Operating systems for wireless sensor network nodes are typically less complex than general-purpose operating systems. Wireless sensor networks are typically deployed with a particular application in mind, rather than as a general platform. And a need for low costs and low power leads most wireless sensor nodes to have low-power microcontrollers ensuring that mechanisms such as virtual memory are either unnecessary or too expensive to implement. This paper presents an overview of different operating systems for sensor networks that include: Contiki, TinyOS, MANTIS, EyesOS, LiteOS, MagnetOS and PicOS. Contiki is an open source operating system for sensor networks. The advantage of using contiki is that it only needs a few kilobytes of code and a few hundred bytes of RAM. TinyOS is a free and open source component-based operating system and platform targeting wireless sensor networks (WSNs). TinyOS is used as packet communication, routing, sensing, actuation and storage. The MANTIS Operating System (MOS) is an open source embedded multithreaded operating system for wireless micro sensor platforms. It helps in saving energy and provides security as well as authenticity for sensor networks. EYES OS uses an eventdriven model and task mechanism to realize objectives like power and memory saving. LiteOS is a real-time operating system that provides memory saving, event-driven and thread-driven programming. MagnetOS is a distributed operating system whose goal is to enable power-aware, adaptive, and easy-to-develop ad-hoc networking applications. Pic Os has few resource requirements and supports multitasking, a flat structure for processes.

REFERENCES
[1] Feng Zhao,Leonidas Guibas,,Wireless Sensor Networks, Morgan Kaufmann Publications. [2] M. Tubaishat, S. Madria, (2003) Sensor Networks : An Overview , IEEE Potentials, April/May 2003. [3] Operating systems by William stallings, 4th ed, 2001, Prentice- hall. [4] Operating system concepts by Silberschatz, Galvin, Gagne, 7th edition, wiley. [5] http://www.contiki-os.org/

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International Journal of Computational Intelligence and Information Security, November 2012 Vol. 3, No. 9 ISSN: 1837-7823
[6] Mission statement, TinyOS Community Forum, http://www.tinyos.net/. [7] H. Abrach et al., MANTIS: System Support for Multimodal Networks of In-Situ Sensors, Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Sensor Networks and Applications (WSNA03), San Diego, CA, Sept. 2003, pp. 5059. [8] S. Dulman, P. Havinga, Operating System Fundamentals for the EYES Distributed Sensor Network, Proceedings of Progress02, 2002. [9] Q. Cao, T. Abdelzaher, J. Stankovic, and T. He, "The LiteOS Operating System: Towards Unix-Like Abstractions for Wireless Sensor Networks," Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Information processing in sensor networks , 2008. [10] R. Barr et al., On the Need for System-Level Support for Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks, ACM Operating Systems Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, Apr. 2002, pp. 15. [11] E. Akhmetshina, P. Gburzynski, F. Vizeacoumar, PicOS: ATiny Operation System for Extremely Small Embedded Platforms, Proceedings of the Conference on Embedded Systems and Applications (ESA02), Las Vegas, NV, June 2002, pp. 116122.

AUTHORS PROFILE

Dr. Md. Ali Hussain M.Tech., Ph.D. working as Assoc.Professor Dept. of Electronics and Computer Engineering, KL University, Guntur District, A.P., India. His research interest includes Computer Networks, Wireless Networks, Mobile Networks and Web Commerce. He has published large number of papers in National & International Conferences and International Journals. He also served as a Program Committee (PC) Member for many International Conferences. He is at present Chief Technical Advisory Board Member, Chief Editor, Editor and Technical Reviewer of reputated International Journals. He is a member of IACSIT, IRACST, UACEE, ISTE, IAENG, AIRCC, AICIT, and IARCS.

Dr. K. Satya Rajesh M.Tech., Ph.D. working as Assoc.Professor Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering in K L University, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. His research interest includes Wireless and Sensor Networks. He has published large number of papers in National and International Journals. He presented large number of papers in National and International conferences. He is a Technical Review member of IJRRAN, IJCSIT etc., He had a membership of IACSIT, SSRGJ etc.,

Md. Abdul Ahad, M.Tech, (Ph.D) working as Asst.Professor Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering in K L University, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. His research interest includes Computer Networks and Wireless Networks. He has presented papers in National & International Conferences and published large number of papers in International Journals.

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