Book review

Citation

(2006), "Book review", Sensor Review, Vol. 26 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2006.08726aae.001

Book review

Book review

Handbook of Sensor Networks: Compact Wireless and Wired Sensing Systems

Mohammad Ilyas and Imad Mahgoub28 July 2004CRC Press0849319684£85.00, $149.95www.crcpress.co.uk/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=1968&parent_id=&pc

Keywords: Sensors, Books

This handbook of sensor networks provides a quality reference on the topic or wired and wireless sensor networks. The book is comprised of some 672 pages, and presents a comprehensive and well-organised compilation of sections and chapters covering many of the exciting developments in this field. The book contains some 40 chapters, which are written by various recognised experts in the area. There are separate sections in the book to cover key topics in the design, analysis and deployment of distributed sensors. Such topics include application areas, sensor network architectures, communication protocols, tracking and positioning technologies, data collection and processing, energy issues, reliability issues, performance and design issues.

Smart wired and wireless sensor networks are defining new systems for commercial, industrial, military, automotive and even home environments. Such smart environments represent a new evolutionary wave of embedded sensing and computing. Wired sensor networks have been in existence for many years now. Recent advances in radio frequency technology, coupled with powerful processing capability on low-power, lost-cost integrated circuit devices, has spurned a recent explosion in sensor networking applications. As sensors are becoming more tightly integrated into electronic sensing nodes, each node device can sense the physical world, process the data and communicate within a network of such sensor nodes. These sensor networks are sometimes referred to as “smart dust”, a term which was coined to represent a multitude of tiny low power, low-cost sensor nodes without the necessity for physically wired connections, where the collective set of nodes has a sense of self organisation to achieve the desired distributed sensing application. This handbook provides a very good insight into the concepts and technologies, which are behind such developments.

By in large the contributing authors are from the university research community, worldwide, but the book will appeal to both practising engineers and academic researchers alike.

Readers of the Sensor Review journal should find this book to be a worthwhile reference book to learn more about the exciting world of sensor networks.

Donal HeffernanDepartment of Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Limerick