Unattended Ground Sensors: Communications Technologies and Markets, Issue II

This is Issue II of the report, which was necessary to update previous information and to present new marketing data on WSN-UGS.

The topic of this report is Unattended Ground Sensors communications technologies and markets. UGSs are becoming common tools to obtain various information, including environmental, situational and other data from difficult reachable for humans places. They, initially, were utilized in the various military applications, and only lately found the place in the commercial sectors, starting from SCADA and going even to Personal Body LAN. The main advantage of such sensors is their ability to utilizing wireless communications between the area of deployment and an operator who may be located miles from the area of UGS operations.

Large-scale WSN-UGS represent an evolving generation of embedded communications structures and they have characteristics that differentiate them from traditional wireless networks. WSN-UGS have many constrains that are not typical for other wireless networks, such as:

• Node size
• Dependence on the battery life
• Bandwidth
• Extreme conditions for operations
• Large number of nodes.

These networks are usually constructed in a mesh topology, and are left to be self-organized and self-protected. They can function unattended for months, collecting valuable commercial or military information necessary for their users functioning. In many cases, these networks availability is vital for success of the military operation or normal operation of a manufacturing facility.

Our analysis showed that the UGS addressable market is growing together with a military WSN-UGS market, and 2010-2012 years will be a time of UGS penetration in a variety of commercial and military sectors.

The report concentrates on two forward-looking technologies, UWB and ZigBee that were designed with such applications as UGS in mind. Though completely different in nature, these technologies are well suited for UGS communications specifics, such as extremely low power consumption, low levels of transmission with noise-like signals, high security and low-to middle speeds of transmission.

The report contains marketing and technical analysis of both UWB and ZigBee, with accent on their applicability to support WSN-UGS mesh infrastructures. It also provides the analysis of UGS specifics in the WSN environment.

Considerable research was done using the Internet. Information from various Web sites was studied and analyzed; evaluation of publicly available marketing and technical publications was also conducted. Telephone conversations and interviews were held with industry analysts, technical experts and executives. In addition to these interviews and primary research, secondary sources were used to develop a more complete mosaic of the market landscape, including industry and trade publications, conferences and seminars.

The overriding objective throughout the work has been to provide valid and relevant information. This has led to a continual review and update of the information content.

This report provides WSN-UGS communications technologies and markets analysis and assessments. It shows that ZigBee and UWB are two primary communications technologies that support successful UGS development. The report is useful for service providers, retail operators, vendors, network operators and managers, investors and end users seeking to gain a deeper understanding of UGS-based structures opportunities and barriers.

For systems vendors, integrators and others, the report provides an analysis and assessment of competing products currently available as well as an estimation of the overall opportunities in the coming years. The end users can gain a more thorough understanding of product' s market and capabilities as well as the economics of using ZegBee and UWB to improve cost efficiency of Wireless Sensor Networks based on UGS.