Abstract
In recent years, the invention of wireless sensor networks (WSN) offers new opportunities to the in-situ monitoring. Applying WSN on in-situ monitoring system not only reduces the cost, but also increase the scalability of in-situ monitoring. The major role of wireless sensor networks in in-situ monitoring is to construct a data network to collect the in-situ data from the in-situ sensors. However, as the wider adoption of wireless sensor networks in in-situ monitoring applications, the design requirements on the quality of network services vary on different types of study objects and bring different design challenges to wireless sensor networks. Generally speaking, the in-situ sensors might be deployed in either static study object or astatic study object. The static study objects are those whose in-situ conditions could be measured by the in-situ sensors at fixed positions once they are deployed. Designing a WSN system for in-situ monitoring of static objects should address the specific requirements of the transmissions latency, energy efficiency, transmission fairness and etc. On contrary, the astatic study objects are those who do not stay at fix positions, and their in-situ conditions should be measured by the mobile in-situ sensors. Designing a WSN system for in-situ monitoring of astatic objects should not only address the requirements of static objects, but also handle the mobility of the in-situ sensors. This thesis explores the issues of designing wireless sensor networks for in-situ monitoring of static and astatic study object. For in-situ monitoring of static study object, the design issues of structural health monitoring are explored, and, for in-situ monitoring of astatic study object, the design issues of human behavior monitoring are explored.