GB2543856A

GB2543856A - End-to-end IoT device

Info

Publication number: GB2543856A
Application number: GB1519364.2A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Monteiro Angelo; Mauricio João
Original assignee: Mothive Ltd
Current assignee: Mothive Ltd
Priority date: 2015-11-02
Filing date: 2015-11-02
Publication date: 2017-05-03
Also published as: GB201519364D0

Abstract

A wireless sensor network is disclosed that is configurable for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment. The wireless sensor network comprises mote devices arranged at sensing locations in the environment and a gateway device. Each mote device comprises a wireless communication module for data communication with other mote devices and gateway devices within range, plural sensor input ports each configured for electrically coupling to and receiving sensor data from a specific type of sensor, said sensors being selected so as to configure the wireless sensor network to sense the desired physical characteristics. A microcontroller within the mote device is configured to communicate the sensed physical characteristics via a wireless ad hoc network to other mote devices and/or a gateway device. By providing a mote with multiple sensors pre-installed to a specific input port and/or by using plug and play type sensors coupled to the input ports less initial configuration of the wireless sensor network is required.

Description

WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK FIELD OF THE TECHNOLOGY

The invention relates generally to wireless sensor networks. More particularly, the invention relates to motes and gateways which together provide a wireless sensor network, and to a middleware platform for retrieving data from and allowing control of the wireless sensor network.

BACKGROUND

There are many situations in which the sensing of physical quantities throughout an environment and the collection of data relating to those sensed quantities would be beneficial. The collection of such sensed data may variably allow a better understanding of the sensed environment, and may allow a better allocation and control of other resources for the control and management of the environment in a responsive, and better-informed manner. The use of sensed data in this way to allow a more targeted use of resources could in turn enable a more efficient and/or higher output management of that environment, lowering the resource requirements for management, and increasing yield from the use of the environment.

For example, the municipal authorities tasked with the collection of waste in urban environments currently deploy their resources on a typically cyclical basis to remove waste to a processing facility. However, the allocation of those resources is made in ignorance of any real information regarding the requirements for waste collection at any given time. As a result, the deployment of waste removal operatives may be sub-optimally planned leading to over-requirement or sub-optimal deployment of resources. This may further lead to waste receptacles standing at full capacity for a significant period of time, and nearly-empty receptacles being collected. If the filled capacity of waste receptacles of a municipal environment could be sensed, then the deployment of waste collection resources could be planned and operated in a more effective way.

In another example, in secured or even wide area physical environments where access control and monitoring is desired, the deployment of expensive active monitoring and detection systems such as security staffing teams and security camera systems is needed to detect intruders such as enemy combatants or incursions by unwelcome persons which may otherwise go unnoticed. In many areas this is unrealistic. If instead the motion of intruders throughout the wider area were detectable this could be bought to the attention of security teams who could address the incursion as required.

Similarly, wildfires in forested areas can cause significant disruption, destruction to property and loss of life if they go unchecked early and are allowed to develop. Effective wide area monitoring of forested areas for early signs of forest fires to allow a quick response would facilitate the prevention of forest fires developing, and would reduce the risk.

There are many other environments and use cases in which sensing physical characteristics in an environment would be advantageous, particularly if this were carried out in such a way as to reduce the level of resources required to actively monitor the environment, while at the same time improving resource allocation and effectiveness and efficiency of the response of the deployed resources.

It is in this context that the present invention is devised.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The variety of technologies that together make up the “Internet of Things” (loT) comprising a series of electronic devices that communicate “machine to machine” is currently developing and is showing promising capacity for deployment in a number of use cases, including, amongst many others, sensing physical quantities. Indeed, wireless sensor networks have been proposed, which can implement a number of these loT technologies in order to sense physical quantities throughout an environment.

However, the extent of the uptake of loT devices for providing wireless sensor networks has so far been limited.

The devisers of the present disclosure have realised that there are a number of reasons for this.

One reason is that the Internet of Things represents a convergence of many technologies which are still generally quite fragmented. This means that any manager of resources wanting to sense physical quantities in their environment will typically have to specify and design the devices making up the wireless sensor network, source and integrate the correct components and software, and deploy the devices of the wireless sensor network. Thus wireless sensor network technology currently is relatively difficult to deploy readily in a cost-effective way, and so it is an not easily accessible technology solution for resource managers wanting to realise gains in efficiency and effectiveness.

Similarly, providers of loT technologies have typically developed only largely specialist or design and build bespoke loT solutions, such as wireless sensor networks, to address specific market or customer needs. However, the specificity of these solutions leads to a high cost of delivery, which has constrained the market size and uptake, and thus the available range of these loT solutions.

Thus the available technologies that can be used to deploy useful loT devices tend to be bespoke in design, and heavily segmented and piece-wise in their implementation. A further reason for limited uptake is that, for many of the desired applications of sensing of physical quantities in an environment, it is desirable to have very low maintenance systems that require little to no attention once they are deployed throughout wide area environments. For example, to monitor a forested area, it would generally be impractical to require servicing of the loT devices with wired power, or for the loT devices to require replacement or servicing on a regular basis. Current loT devices tend not to balance the energy, length or service, maintenance and sample frequency requirements in a way that is practical for sensing physical quantities throughout wide area environments.

Further still, existing resource management technology platforms are not typically ready configured to integrate with loT networks, and so the accessibility and usefulness of the sensed data for effective management and control of the resources throughout the environment is also similarly limited.

Thus, viewed from one aspect, the present disclosure provides a wireless sensor network configurable for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment, comprising: a plurality of mote devices arranged at sensing locations in the environment; and a gateway device.

Viewed from another aspect, the present disclosure provides a mote device for use in the wireless sensor network.

The mote devices each comprise: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with any mote devices and gateway devices within range in the wireless sensor network; plural sensor input ports each configured for electrically coupling to and receiving sensor data from a specific type of sensor; one or more sensors each coupled to a respective input port configured to receive that sensor, said sensors being selected so as to configure the wireless sensor network to sense the desired physical characteristics in the environment; and a microcontroller configured to: cause the coupled sensors to operate to sense the physical quantities; communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other mote devices and gateway devices within range to thereby form a wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; generate data based on the sensed physical quantities; receive data generated by other motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and send data based on sensed physical quantities generated by the mote or received from another mote to be routed in the wireless sensor network towards the gateway.

Viewed from another aspect, the present disclosure provides a gateway device for use in the wireless sensor network.

The gateway device comprises: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with motes within range in the wireless sensor network; a data communication unit configured to connect the gateway to the Internet; a data processing unit configured to: communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other motes and gateways to thereby form a wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; and receive, by operation of the wireless communication module, data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and communicate, by operation of the data communication unit, to: transmit towards the internet data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat.

In embodiments, in each mote, the two or more or optionally all of the sensor input ports are arranged on a board juxtaposed side by side.

In embodiments, each mote further comprises a mainboard having the microcontroller provided thereon, and a sensor board on which the input ports are arrayed, the sensor board being electronically connected to the microcontroller on the mainboard by a backplane or through a board to board connector coupling.

In embodiments, each mote comprises a casing supporting the microcontroller, input ports and sensors, wherein the casing comprises a sensor mask blank arranged over the input ports, the mote being configured and blank being configured or designed to be user-configurable to expose the sensors inserted into the input ports, preferably configured to expose only those sensors, to allow them to measure their respective physical quantities in the environment. Optionally, the casing of each mote is configured to generally protect the electronic components housed therein from the elements.

In embodiments, in each mote, the microcontroller is further configured to, in use, detect the type of any sensor coupled to the sensor input ports and retrieve and process signals generated thereby to generate the data based on the sensed physical quantities, wherein optionally the sensors coupled to the input ports are plug and play sensors having their respective electronic data sheets stored thereon.

In embodiments, each mote has two or more input ports each configured to receive one of: a temperature sensor; a humidity sensor; a temperature and humidity sensor; an ambient light sensor; a proximity sensor; a distance sensor; a UV light sensor; a motion sensor; a vibration sensor; and accelerometer; a CMOS camera sensor.

In embodiments, each mote is configured as an autonomous, energy self-sufficient, system having a secondary cell and a local energy harvesting system, optionally a photovoltaic cell, arranged to provide charge to the secondary cell in use.

In embodiments, the microcontroller of each mote is configured for low power operation to intermittently power up the mote sensors and wireless communication module to periodically collect samples of the sensed physical quantities and transmit them towards to gateway.

In embodiments, the motes and the gateway are configured to communicate at least the data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat using MQTT-SN v1.0 or higher.

In embodiments, the data based on sensed physical quantities includes data indicative of sensed physical quantities.

Viewed from another aspect, the present disclosure provides a server implementing a middleware platform for use in a wireless sensor network.

In embodiments, the wireless sensor network, further comprises a server implementing a middleware platform, the server comprising: a data communication module configured to provide a connection with the Internet for communication with the gateway; a logical module configured: to receive, by operation of the data communication module, from the gateway via the data connection module data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; to maintain sensor network control information indicative of: zero or more wireless sensor network data output channels; zero or more actions to take to output data on a data output channel; and zero or more rules to be applied to received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and to operate a middleware engine configured to: apply the rules to the received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and carry out the actions appropriately triggered by the rules to operate the data communication module to output data on the appropriate wireless sensor network data output channels.

In embodiments, the wireless sensor network further comprises a web portal provided by a web server to a browser of a client, said web portal being logically coupled to said middleware platform to define the sensor network control information maintained thereat, said web portal being operable by a user of said client device to set the sensor network control information maintained on the middleware platform.

In embodiments, one or more of the motes of the wireless sensor network further comprises a control module operable by the mote to act to control an external system.

In embodiments, the microcontroller of the one or more motes is configured by instructions stored in a memory thereof to locally process sensor data and optionally to also apply one or more rules to the sensor data or locally processed sensor data and to further optionally take one or more actions based on the outcome of one or more of the rules.

In embodiments, the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are preinstalled before installation of the mote devices in the environment.

In embodiments, the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are definable in use based on received instructions originating from the middleware platform and/or web portal.

In embodiments, the middleware server is configured such that the motes of the wireless sensor network are indicated in the stored sensor network control information as a data output channel of the middleware platform, and wherein the microcontrollers of the motes having control modules provided thereon are configured to operate the control modules to act to control an external system responsive to and based on control data received from the middleware platform.

Viewed from another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method of providing a wireless sensor network for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment, comprising: installing a gateway device as disclosed herein in the environment and connecting the data communication unit of the gateway to the internet; configuring a plurality of mote devices as disclosed herein to sense the desired selection of physical quantities in the environment by coupling one or more appropriate sensors for sensing the desired selection of physical quantities to the relevant specifically configured sensor input port of the mote; and installing each of the plurality of motes at a respective sensing location in the environment, each within range of at least one other mote or the gateway.

In embodiments, the method further comprises: providing a server implementing a middleware platform as disclosed herein and configuring the server and the gateway to communicate with each other; and providing, by a web server to a browser of a client, a web portal, said web portal being logically coupled to said middleware platform to define the sensor network control information maintained thereat, said web portal being operable by a user of said client device to set the sensor network control information maintained on the middleware platform.

By the present disclosure, an end-to-end loT platform technology is provided that can be readily adapted by selection of appropriate compatible sensors to provide wireless sensor networks that are configured to address the needs of a variety of use cases. That is, each mote device comprises components that can be adapted to provide differently functioning wireless sensor networks according to need. In addition, the mote devices are selfconfiguring, adapting to the type of sensor data that is produced by the coupled sensors, and automatically forming a wireless ad hoc mesh network to send the sensed data to a standard middleware platform. The middleware platform can be easily configured, for example by user operation of a web portal, to set rules and actions and output channels such that the output of the wireless sensor network (or ‘hive’) can be controlled in its reporting and in its actions, and to integrate with third party resource management platforms, for example, by publishing data based on the physical quantities sensed by the wireless sensor network to third party databases.

In addition, as the mote devices use energy harvesting to maintain a charge in their secondary cells which power them, and are also configured to operate only intermittently and use a lightweight communication protocol, the lifetime of the mote devices in autonomous operation, in which they require no maintenance or power provision, is long, at least 5 years.

As a result, the configuration and installation of wireless sensor networks for a range of different use cases is greatly simplified, and allows the reuse of standard platform hardware in the form of the motes, and integration with a standard middleware platform that allows ready configuration, integration and interfacing with third party resource management platforms. As the motes are so flexible in their application and reliable in their long-term autonomous operation, the range of potential uses and demand for them is therefore large, and so the potential volume of devices needed by the various markets is also large. Thus the motes can be mass-manufactured which drives significant cost reductions through economies of scale. Where the sensor ports are provided on a separate board, the design and construction of the mote devices can be future-proofed by allowing only the sensor board to need to be changed when additional functionality and support for new sensor types needs to be included.

For example, a wireless sensor network of relatively inexpensive motes can be deployed throughout a forested area and configured to sense for wildfires, by inserting plug and play temperature sensors in the standard motes, and installing them in locations throughout the forest so that they are within range to form a wireless ad hoc mesh network. As the cost of provision is low, and the useful duration of the devices is long, the network can be maintained by adding in additional devices or reconditioning existing devices over time, in the event that one or more of the existing mote devices should fail.

Where control modules are provided in the motes, they can be configured to operate their control mechanisms autonomously, either processing sensor data and making decisions locally, at the edge of the network, or through data processing and decision making at the middleware platform. The middleware platform may also be operated to configure the data processing performed locally at the mote devices. This may reduce the need to transfer large volumes of data across the network, further reducing the demand on the energy usage of the motes and further extending their useful life. This may further extend the flexibility and range of use of the wireless sensor network. As a result, the total cost of designing, configuring and implementing wireless sensor networks using the present disclosure is low.

Further, as the wireless sensor network of the present disclosure provides an end-to-end platform, in which the motes, gateway and middleware come as standard, preconstructed or pre-implemented network components, the wireless sensor networks according to the present disclosure can be configured and implemented with relative ease, without needing to specify the network requirements, design the system, identify the necessary technologies and components needed to satisfy the design requirements, source them, combine them and integrate the hardware and software.

Thus by the present disclosure the barriers to implementation of wireless sensor networks to sense physical quantities throughout wide area environments are relatively low, which should lead to a much greater uptake in their use, and a more effective and efficient use of resources to manage those physical environments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Aspects of the disclosure will now be described in more detail in relation to certain exemplary embodiments, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of an example wireless sensor network in accordance with the present disclosure;

Figure 2 shows a detailed schematic representation of a mote device, a gateway and a middleware server of an example wireless sensor network of the present disclosure;

Figure 3 shows a representation of an example casing of a mote of a wireless sensor network of the present disclosure; and

Figure 4 shows a flow chart illustrating a method of providing an example wireless sensor network of the present disclosure.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Referring now to Figure 1, which shows a schematic representation of an example wireless sensor network 100 in accordance with the present disclosure, the wireless sensor network 100 comprises a plurality of mote devices 11 (referred to herein generally as mote devices 11a...n) and a gateway device 12 installed in locations in a physical environment PHY as well as a server 16 connected to the gateway device 12 through the Internet 15.

The physical environment PHY is an environment in which one or more physical quantities are to be sensed by the wireless sensor network, in order to facilitate the management of resources in the physical environment. In the example, the physical environment is a suburban road network in which, currently, the road lighting is kept fully lit all night, which uses up a significant amount of energy.

The wireless sensor network 100 is designed and deployed so as to sense the passage of vehicular and pedestrian traffic during the night, allow the monitoring of the amount of traffic in the road network over time, and to enable the control of the level of the lighting used to illuminate the road network at night. As will be readily understood from the present disclosure, the physical environment could be many different environments, and the wireless sensor network 100 of the present disclosure could be easily reconfigured and repurposed for sensing other physical quantities in those environments, and allowing the monitoring thereof and the controlling of the deployment of resources throughout the environment.

Broadly, the mote devices 11a...n communicate with each other and with the gateway 12 to form a wireless ad hoc mesh network. The mote devices 11a... n sense the physical quantities at locations throughout the environment PHY and send data based on the sensed physical quantities towards the gateway device 12. In other embodiments, more than one gateway device 12 may be provided. The gateway device 12 forwards the data on to the server 16 implementing the middleware platform via the Internet 15. The middleware server 16 is configured for control of the wireless sensor network 100 and for interfacing with one or more third party enterprise servers 18 providing, for example, a management platform for managing resources for managing the physical environment PHY.

Referring now to Figure 2, which shows a detailed schematic representation of one of the mote devices 11a...n, a gateway device 12 and a middleware server 16 of the example wireless sensor network 100, each of these components of the wireless sensor network 100 and the operation thereof will now be described in more detail.

The main purpose of the motes 11a... n is to collect information from the environment using one or more pre-selected industry-grade sensors, pre-process the data collected, send on lightweight messages relating to the sensor data and to relay messages received from other motes towards the gateway 112, and to actively change the state of a control module (such as a relay or transistor) to control an external system (not shown).

Each of the mote devices 11a... n in the example arrangement comprises a mainboard 11x, a sensor and control board 11y (referred to from hereon as sensor board 11 y) and a Power Management Unit (PMU) 11z, all supported by a casing (not shown).

The mainboard 11x and sensor board 11 y are printed circuit boards (PCBs) having various components provided thereon. As can be seen schematically from Figure 2, the mainboard 11x and sensor board 11y are electronically coupled by, for example a backplane or board connector coupling, to allow electronic communication and therebetween.

The PMU 11z comprises a battery management system (BMS) 117 which may be, for example, a microcontroller-controlled electronic circuit, coupled to a battery 118 of secondary (i.e. rechargeable) cells and an energy harvesting unit which, in the present example, is provided by photovoltaic cells 119 arranged in the casing to receive sunlight during use.

The BMS 117 of the PMU 11z is responsible for harvesting energy from PV cells 119 or other energy harvesting means and recharging the battery 118 and managing the discharging of the battery 118 so as to maintain the motes 11a...n as self-sufficient in their operation as possible. The BMS 117 is also responsible for providing power from the battery 118 to the mainboard 11x and sensor board 11y to power the components provided thereon in an energy-efficient manner.

The battery 118 used in each of the Motes 11a...n comprises rechargeable Li-Ion cells, which are eco-friendly and available from Uniross or Panasonic. The number of cycles supported is 1000, which means that if the Motes discharge the batteries by 5% and there is absolutely no harvesting power fed into the circuit, then the battery still has 95% capacity of its current cycle (percentages are only as an example).

The mainboard 11x comprises a microcontroller (MCU) 111 and a memory 112 such as a flash memory and a wireless communications unit 113. The MCU 111 is configured, and the flash memory 112 comprises instructions which further configure the MCU 111, to control the operation of the sensor board 11y and wireless communications unit 113.

The wireless control unit 113 comprises an RF module that provides the network connectivity to the mote 11a... n and an RF adaptation circuit that provides the motes with a very good range allowing up to around 330 metres (line of sight) between each mote/gateway.

The MCU 111 is the brain of the Mote 11 a... n and controls all activities of the Mote including smart algorithms that put the components in an ultra low power mode (even the Microcontroller itself). It is here and in flash memory 112 where the firmware of the Mote is installed. An open source Operating System called Contiki OS, which is a very low power Operating System usable for loT devices, is implemented on the MCU 111. On top of this, the MCU is configured by firmware control to provide all functionalities, routines and integration with components necessary for operation of the mote 11 a... n. An example MCU usable in the motes is STM32F407 available from ST Microelectronics. Also, the MCU 111 is configured to be capable of data processing for fast decision making operations and actuation of control modules at the edge of the network (i.e. data does not require to transverse the Internet, be processed in a server and then the result be pushed back to the device). The I/O bus is directly connected to the Microcontroller 111 and the other components of the mainboard 11x and, via a board connector, the components of the sensor board 11 y.

The sensor board 11 y is a printed board having a port array 114 provided thereon having plural sensor ports 114a, 114b, 114c (further sensor ports can be provided) each configured for electrically coupling to and receiving sensor data from at least one specific type of sensor and a control module port 114z (further control module ports may be provided) configured for electrically coupling to and sending control signals to a control module by which the mote 11a...n can control an external system. The sensor input ports and control module ports are arranged on a board juxtaposed side by side.

Each of the plural sensor input ports 114a...c is configured to receive at least one of: a temperature sensor; a humidity sensor; a temperature and humidity sensor; an ambient light sensor; a proximity sensor; a distance sensor; a UV light sensor; a motion sensor; a vibration sensor; and accelerometer; a CMOS camera sensor. At least two input ports, optionally at least three input ports, optionally at least four input ports, optionally at least five input ports, optionally at least six input ports, optionally at least eight input ports, may be provided, each being configured to couple and operate with a specific type of sensor (that may be a manufacturer-specific sensor that has a specific form of construction, operation and inputs/outputs, or a sensor of a specific type made to a standard specification and mode of operation and inputs/outputs provided by multiple manufacturers).

The microcontroller 111 is configured by firmware to, in use, detect the type of any sensor coupled to the sensor input ports 114a...c and retrieve and process signals generated thereby to process and generate data based on the sensed physical quantities.

On detection of the specific sensor being inserted into its relevant pot 114a...c, the microcontroller 111 operates by firmware to read and process its sensor output. The detection may be in part or completely based on the identification of the sensor input port type or location into which a sensor has been inserted, and/or, where the sensors coupled to the input ports are plug and play sensors having their respective electronic data sheets stored thereon, the detection may be in part or completely by the MCU 111 reading the electronic data sheets of the inserted sensors. In certain implementations, more than one different type of sensor may be insertable into the same input port, if they have the same coupling, and the MCU 111 can detect the sensor type and operate the sensor accordingly. For example, this means that a temperature sensor from Honeywell that is collecting data can be changed with a UV sensor from Vishay, and the Mote will automatically detect the new sensor and start collecting UV level information from the environment. Support is currently provided for the following sensors: Humidity and Temperature from Honeywell, Ambient Light and Proximity from Vishay, Temperature from Microchip, Distance from Sharp, UV Light Sensor from Vishay, and Motion from Panasonic. Support for more sensors such as CMOS cameras, vibration, etc can also be provided.

Similarly, a number of control module ports 114z (only one of which is shown) may be provided in the board 11 y into which control modules may be coupled. Like the sensors, the control module ports may be specifically designed to receive control modules of specific types or designs. The control modules may be actuators, relays, transistors, or other electronic control circuits. The control modules may be provided to control an external system, such as dimming street lights or, turning on/off motors etc.

In the present example, each mote 11a...n has an ambient light sensor 115a inserted into sensor input port 114a configured for receiving the ambient light sensor, and a proximity sensor 115c inserted into sensor input port 115c configured for receiving the proximity sensor. Thus by the coupling of the selected sensors into the sensor input ports 114a...c, the standard motes 11a... n can be flexibly configured for detecting the ambient light levels and the motion of passing pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The control module port 114z has inserted into it a dimmer control module 116z for controlling a light level of a street light to which the mote 11 is coupled.

Turning back now to the MCU 111, in use it is configured, at least in part by firmware stored in memory 112, to enable communication using the wireless communications unit 113 with other motes 11a... n (and with the gateway 12) to form therebetween a wireless ad hoc mesh network. That is, the mote 11a... n find each other and form links with other motes within range. The resulting network is self-configuring and resilient. Within the network, each mote 11a...n has a unique ID and is addressable.

All motes 11a...n are configured to communicate using IEEE 802.15.4 standard physical layer and MAC layer protocols (available from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at http://standardsJeee.org/) and the 6L0WPAN protocol (available from The Internet Engineering Taskforce at https://www.ieff.org/) to allow low energy IPv6 communications across the wireless sensor network 100. The motes 11a... n are configured to function in the network 100 in routing mode which means that there must be a routing protocol to choose the best path from origin to destination. The motes uses IETF RPL, or Ripple (defined in RFC6550 available from The Internet Engineering Taskforce at https://www.ietf.org/), as the routing protocol to forward the messages between the motes 11a...n until they reach the gateway 12. Low power listening may be used for energy saving purposes.

At the application layer, the motes 11a... n are configured to use MQTT-SN messages (specification available from http://mqtt.org/) to relay information from the sensors to the gateway and on. MQTT-SN is basically MQTT over UDP, and is much more lightweight than the MQTT protocol itself. The MQTT-SN messages contain several parameters such as name of the device collecting the information, physical quantity collected, and value, among other optional parameters. As for security between motes 11 a... n, DTLS is used to protect the messages from being maliciously intercepted and decoded. Additional security is provided by the MCU 111 itself, as, once it has been programmed with the firmware in flash ROM 112, an irreversible fuse is broken (triggered by software) and the binary code cannot be accessible any more (read or write).

In use, the MCU 111 of each mote 11a... n is configured to intermittently power up the mote sensors and wireless communication module to periodically collect samples of the sensed physical quantities. In this way, the motes 11a... n operate only at a low power consumption rate, typically taking samples of the physical quantities at a rate of once a minute. The sampling rate could be increased to say 2 or 3 samples a minute, but the lifetime of the Mote would significantly reduce as the wireless communication module 113 and the MCU 111 would have to be active during a considerable period of time. Nevertheless, one sample/minute of data is a suitably detailed sample rate and very much unique for a self-powered device.

Once the samples are taken, the MCU 111 generates data based on the sensed physical quantities in the form of an MQTT-SN message. The sensed physical quantities may first be pre-processed, such that the data in the MQTT-SN message is only based on the sensed data, or it may correspond directly to the sensed data. This depends on whether the processing of the data is to be performed at the network edge (i.e. the MCUs of the motes have been configured to perform data processing) or whether the data is to be processed centrally, for example at the middleware platform 16.

The motes 11a...n are configured to route the MQTT-SN message containing the data based on the sensed physical quantities in the wireless ad hoc mesh network of motes towards the gateway 12 using the RPL routing protocol. The motes 11a...n are also configured to receive MQTT-SN messages containing data generated by other motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat routed on the wireless ad hoc mesh network using RPL and to send them on to the gateway 12.

Referring now to Figure 3, each mote 11a...n comprises a casing 300 for supporting the boards of the mote including the components of the microcontroller, input ports, and sensors, and the power management unit. An example casing is shown in Figure 3. A main housing 301 of the casing 300 is shaped as an open receptacle that receives the mainboard 11x (not shown in Figure 3) and supports the battery management system 117 and battery 118 of the power management unity 11z (also not shown in Figure 3). On top of this, there is provided a sensors layer 302 supporting the sensor board 11 y thereunder (not shown in Figure 3). The sensors layer 302 comprises a sensor support blank arranged over the input ports of the sensor board 11y, such that the sensors and control module 202 can be supported on top of a tray of sensors layer 302 of casing, and be coupled into the ports 114 of the sensor layer 11y. Above the sensors and control module 303, a top layer 204 is provided as a sensor mask blank 304 configured to have openings to expose the sensors inserted into the input ports to allow them to measure their respective physical quantities in the environment. In embodiments, the top layer 304 is designed to be user-configurable to expose the selected sensors. The casing 300 layers are then sealed using closing pins 305 and the casing 300 is then configured to generally protect the electronic components from, e.g. rain and other adverse physical elements, for example by sheltering and sealing the components. Fixings 306 are provided to mount the motes 11a...n in a variety of settings. While not shown in Figure 3, to mount the motes 11a...n to lampposts in the example use case, adjustable tightening strapping may be provided as a fixing.

The design of the casing can be made compliant with International Protection Marking, I EC standard 60529 (IP Code), so the motes can be deployed even in hazardous environments where ruggedisation is needed to ensure long term operations, such as in the Oil and Gas and Military sectors. The design of the casing can also be made using different materials (for instance, cork) depending on use case with no impact to the shape of the casing. This allows the motes to be made flexible for their different uses, for example in forests where they are required to be unobtrusive and as biodegradable as possible.

Moreover, the mote devices can be made to have a very small footprint, which facilitates their deployment in a range of different use cases. Finally, all electronic components used in the PCB(s) of the Motes and Gateways can be made compliant with the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 2002/95/EC, (RoHS 1) which makes them eco-friendly.

Referring again to Figure 2, the gateway device 12 has a data processing module in the form of a central processing unit (CPU) 121, which, operating under program control of instructions stored in solid state RAM memory 122, in use operates a wireless communications unit 123 to form an endpoint node the wireless ad hoc mesh network together with the motes 11a...n where all data enters and leaves the wireless sensor network 100 from/to the Internet. The motes 11 a... n all route their MQTT-SN messages containing the data based on the sensed physical quantities at each mote to the gateway device, which receives the messages by operation of the wireless communications module 123. The gateway device 12 is provided with a data connection module 124 providing a data link to the Internet 15 through which it communicates with a server 16 configured to provide a middleware platform for communicating with and controlling the wireless sensor network. The gateway device 12 is configured to transmit towards the server 16 over the Internet 15 the data generated by motes 11a...n based on the sensed physical quantities thereat.

The gateway device 12 thus can be seen as a special networking router that understands the "language" spoken by the motes 11a...n and also the language of the Internet (OSI model, IPv4 or IPv6 networks). With that in mind, the gateway device 12 actually acts as the interface between the grid of motes 11a...n deployed in the physical environment and a user or management tool that is across the Internet using the middleware platform implemented by server 16, in a secure manner using IPSec.

The Gateways have two main interfaces - a 10/100 Mbps ethernet port and 4x USB ports. The latter can be used to connected a WiFi usb dongle, for instance, and then join a normal 2.4GHz WiFi network. Whichever option is used, it is always possible connect the gateway 12 to a 3rd party router (wired or 2G/3G/4G). In some countries you can still find 3G dongles that use USB so potentially you could have 3G right out of the USB port on the Gateway as well. Hence the gateway devices 12 are very flexible in terms of northbound connection to the Internet.

To implement this connectivity to the wireless sensor network 100 in the gateway device 12, a proprietary PCB that allows the Gateway to use IEEE 802.15.4, i.e. the same standard used by the Motes, is plugged into, e.g. a Raspberry Pi platform which is free to use for commercial purposes.

Also, the gateway 12 are powered by a power source (not shown) and do not use energy harvesting. The gateways are supposed to be located in strategic locations where power is available, however, a battery may be provided in the Gateway though to keep the device running when power goes down.

The server 16 implements a middleware platform for communicating with and controlling the wireless sensor network 100. This middleware platform implements a rules engine - termed “Mothive Autonomous Rules Engine” (MARE) - which allows a client, through a Web interface, to create decision rules based on data collected by the wireless sensor network 100 from the environment by using a web portal. MARE is an important feature as it allows the wireless sensor network 100 to easily integrate with a wide range of third party platforms and systems (Splunk as an example), and as it enables easy, optionally rules-based monitoring of the environment and control of any linked external systems.

For instance, one can create rules that say "if the ambient light is less than 50%, send an email to x". Here, x is a server or endpoint, ambient light>50% is a rule, and send an email to x is an action to be triggered to provide an output to an endpoint or server if the rule is satisfied. The middleware platform supports capabilities including WebServices calls like REST and SOAP, MySQL queries, MQTT publish messages, or run local scripts.

The web portal can be operated to define the servers/endpoints, rules, actions and capabilities. That is, these aspects of the middleware platform (MARE) are presented to the user/admin as a web interface with four main tabs: General, Servers/Endpoints, Actions, and Rules.

In General, the user decides which capabilities you’d like to activate in the engine, e.g. MQTT subscribe, MQTT publish, mySQL DB, sendmail, REST, SOAP, CoAP, Execute a command, etc.

In Servers/Endpoints, the user provide the details of the devices the middleware server should communicate with. For instance, if in General MySQL was activated, here the user should define the IP address of the database (which may be a database of a third party enterprise server), port number, username and password. Same principle applies to the remaining capabilities and its corresponding parameters. Another example: if the user selected MQTT publish in General, here the user should provide the name of the host, IP address, port and topic.

In Actions, the user defines what the middleware platform should do when a certain rule is triggered. As an example, the user defines an action called mysql_customerA that uses a DB defined in Servers/Endpoints and starts a query with a parametrised string as INSERT INTO mare_customerA (topic, value) VALUES ('_topic_'_value_’) which will write the topic and value received from a mote into the remote DB.

Finally in Rules, the user can define a trigger which is the topic being listening to (in MQTT-SN), then the user sets the comparator (greater than, equal, less than, etc...) which is always associated with the value sensed by a sensor in a Mote, and the user then picks the action from Actions to be taken when the rule is satisfied and give it an optional description. Example: "If MARE receives a motion sensor value from customerA/gw2/mote7 that is true and a light level value from from customerA/gw2/mote7 that is less than 20%, call action mysql_customerA so that the received duplet is stored into my remote DB.”.

The gateway 12 and motes 11a...n can themselves be defined as endpoints in the middleware platform, such that the middleware platform can be configured to provide feedback of information into the wireless sensor network 100. This feedback may be used by the motes to operate control modules to control external systems.

Referring now to Figure 2, the middleware server 16 comprises a data communication module 163 configured to provide a data link with the Internet for communication with the gateway 12 of the wireless sensor network 100.

The server 16 also comprises a logical module instantiated by a central processing unit (CPU) 161 operating under program instruction based on a program stored in memory 162. The logical module is configured to receive, by operation of the data communication module 163, from the gateway 12 via the data connection module the data generated by the motes 11a... n of the wireless sensor network 100 based on the sensed physical quantities thereat.

Then, the logical module is configured to maintain, in database 16db, sensor network control information indicative of: any wireless sensor network data output channels; any actions to take to output data on a data output channel; and any rules to be applied to received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat. The sensor network control information stored in database 16db may also store any capabilities of the middleware platform that have been ‘switched on’ by the user.

As described above, the capabilities, output channels, rules and actions may be set by a user or operator of the wireless sensor network 100 (such as the authorities responsible for managing the road lighting) using the web portal and stored as sensor network control information in the database 16db. The web portal may be served by the middleware server 16 or another web server to a browser of a client device. The web portal is logically coupled to the middleware platform 16 to define the sensor network control information maintained thereat in database 16db. The web portal is operable by a user of said client device to set the sensor network control information maintained on the middleware platform database 16db.

Once the sensor network control information is set, the middleware server 16 is configured to implement and operate a middleware engine configured to apply the rules to the received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and carry out the actions appropriately triggered by the rules to operate the data communication module to output data on the appropriate wireless sensor network data output channels.

In this way a wireless sensor network can be easily configured to sense desired physical quantities in an environment to address the needs of a resource manager tasked with managing that environment. In this case, the motes 11a...n have been provided with ambient light level and motion sensors and installed at lampposts in the environment to form a wireless ad hoc mesh network sending measured data to a gateway 12, which sends the data on to the middleware server 16. The middleware server can then be easily configured to process this data as desired and to output that data to a third party enterprise server database only when certain rules are satisfied. More complicated data processing, analysis and reporting may be possible at the middleware server.

As well as centralised data processing at the middleware platform and integration with third party servers, the wireless sensor network 100 can be configured for data processing and analysis by the motes 11a... n at the edge of the network, and for operation of control modules to control external systems. The instructions necessary for the data processing and analysis at the motes and for operation of the control modules may be preprogrammed into e.g. the flash memory 112 of the motes 11a... n or it may be set at runtime, after deployment, by operation of the middleware server 16 to publish to the motes 11a...n operational instructions.

That is, the microcontroller 111 of the motes may be configured by instructions stored in a memory thereof to locally process sensor data and to also apply one or more rules to the sensor data or locally processed sensor data and to take one or more actions based on the outcome of one or more of the rules. The one or more actions may include operation of the control module. The instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller may be pre-installed before installation of the mote devices in the environment. Alternatively, or in addition, the instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are definable in use based on received instructions originating from the middleware platform and/or web portal.

Thus the motes may be pre-set to process data and control external systems in a given way. For example, the motes may be pre-configured to raise the streetlights to maximum brightness for two minutes if the ambient (non-streetlight) light level is, say less than 20% on a relative scale, and motion has been sensed, before dimming the light back down to turn it off.

However, if, after deployment, it has been found that two minutes is too long, the middleware platform may be configured to send updated instructions to the motes 11a...n to configure them to operate the control module to raise the streetlights to maximum brightness for one minute if the ambient (non-streetlight) light level is, say less than 20% on a relative scale, and motion has been sensed, before dimming the light back down to turn it off.

To allow the middleware platform to be set to cause the motes 11a... n to control the external system(s) based on analysis of the data at the middleware platform, the middleware server is configured such that the motes 11a...n of the wireless sensor network 100 are indicated in the stored sensor network control information as a data output channel of the middleware platform. The middleware platform may then be configured to send to the motes 11 a... n control information to control the external system. The microcontrollers 111 of the motes 111a...n having control modules 116 provided thereon are then configured to operate the control modules to act to control an external system responsive to and based on control data received from the middleware platform.

The wireless sensor network 100 can be adapted for many different use cases for sensing many different physical quantities and controlling many different external systems in many different environments. Nevertheless, a generalised method for providing an example wireless sensor network of the present disclosure is shown in the process flow diagram of Figure 4. Please note that while Figure 4 shows certain steps being performed sequentially in a given order, it is to be understood that this is not limiting as the ordering may be changed and some of the steps may be performed in parallel such that the method is not step-based.

In 401, the gateway 12 is installed at a strategic location in the environment and provided with power from a power source.

In 402, the motes 11a...n are configured to sense the desired physical quantities for the given use case. Here, also, any control modules or other control electronics may be couple to the motes 11a...n.

In 403, the motes 11a... n are installed at locations throughout the physical environment within range of at least one other mote and/or the gateway, to operate in a generally self-sufficient manner. The motes 11a...n and the gateway 12 then communicate to find each other and thereby form a wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween.

In 404, the middleware server 16 is provided and logically connected to the wireless sensor network 100 by internet link.

In 405, a web portal is operated by a user of the wireless sensor network 100, who may be a resource manager, to thereby configure the middleware server 16 and in turn the operation of the wireless sensor network 100.

For example, a wireless sensor network of relatively inexpensive motes can be deployed throughout a forested area configured to sense for wildfires, by inserting plug and play temperature sensors in the standard motes, and installing them in locations throughout the forest so that they are within range to form a wireless ad hoc mesh network. As the cost of provision is low, and the useful duration of the devices is long, the network can be maintained by adding in additional devices or reconditioning existing devices overtime, in the event that one or more of the existing mote devices should fail.

The description of the example embodiments of the present disclosure has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the claims to the forms disclosed. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes could be made to the embodiments described above without departing from the broad concept of the disclosure. It is understood, therefore, that this disclosure is not limited to the particular embodiments disclosed, but covers modifications within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. Wireless sensor network configurable for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment, comprising: a plurality of mote devices arranged at sensing locations in the environment; and a gateway device; wherein the mote devices each comprise: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with any mote devices and gateway devices within range in the wireless sensor network; plural sensor input ports each configured for electrically coupling to and receiving sensor data from a specific type of sensor; one or more sensors each coupled to a respective input port configured to receive that sensor, said sensors being selected so as to configure the wireless sensor network to sense the desired physical characteristics in the environment; and a microcontroller configured to: cause the coupled sensors to operate to sense the physical quantities; communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other mote devices and gateway devices within range to thereby form an wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; generate data based on the sensed physical quantities; receive data generated by other motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and send data based on sensed physical quantities generated by the mote or received from another mote to be routed in the wireless sensor network towards the gateway; wherein the gateway device comprises: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with motes within range in the wireless sensor network; a data communication unit configured to connect the gateway to the Internet; a data processing unit configured to: communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other motes and gateways to thereby form a wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; and receive, by operation of the wireless communication module, data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and communicate, by operation of the data communication unit, to: transmit towards the internet data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat.

2. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 1, wherein, in each mote, the two or more or optionally all of the sensor input ports are arranged on a board juxtaposed side by side.

3. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein each mote further comprises a mainboard having the microcontroller provided thereon, and a sensor board on which the input ports are arrayed, the sensor board being electronically connected to the microcontroller on the mainboard by a backplane or through a board to board connector coupling.

4. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein each mote comprises a casing supporting the microcontroller, input ports and sensors, wherein the casing comprises a sensor mask blank arranged over the input ports, the mote being configured and blank being configured or designed to be user-configurable to expose the sensors inserted into the input ports, preferably configured to expose only those sensors, to allow them to measure their respective physical quantities in the environment.

5. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 4, wherein the casing of each mote is configured to generally protect the electronic components housed therein from the elements.

6. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein, in each mote, the microcontroller is further configured to, in use, detect the type of any sensor coupled to the sensor input ports and retrieve and process signals generated thereby to generate the data based on the sensed physical quantities, wherein optionally the sensors coupled to the input ports are plug and play sensors having their respective electronic data sheets stored thereon.

7. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein each mote has two or more input ports each configured to receive one of: a temperature sensor; a humidity sensor; a temperature and humidity sensor; an ambient light sensor; a proximity sensor; a distance sensor; a UV light sensor; a motion sensor; a vibration sensor; and accelerometer; a CMOS camera sensor.

8. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein each mote is configured as an autonomous, energy self-sufficient, system having a secondary cell and a local energy harvesting system, optionally a photovoltaic cell, arranged to provide charge to the secondary cell in use.

9. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the microcontroller of each mote is configured for low power operation to intermittently power up the mote sensors and wireless communication module to periodically collect samples of the sensed physical quantities and transmit them towards to gateway.

10. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the motes and the gateway are configured to communicate at least the data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat using MQTT-SN v1.0 or higher.

11. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the data based on sensed physical quantities includes data indicative of sensed physical quantities.

12. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, further comprising a server implementing a middleware platform, the server comprising: a data communication module configured to provide a connection with the Internet for communication with the gateway; a logical module configured: to receive, by operation of the data communication module, from the gateway via the data connection module data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; to maintain sensor network control information indicative of: zero or more wireless sensor network data output channels; zero or more actions to take to output data on a data output channel; and zero or more rules to be applied to received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and to operate a middleware engine configured to: apply the rules to the received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and carry out the actions appropriately triggered by the rules to operate the data communication module to output data on the appropriate wireless sensor network data output channels.

13. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 12, further comprising a web portal provided by a web server to a browser of a client, said web portal being logically coupled to said middleware platform to define the sensor network control information maintained thereat, said web portal being operable by a user of said client device to set the sensor network control information maintained on the middleware platform.

14. Wireless sensor network as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein one or more of the motes of the wireless sensor network further comprises a control module operable by the mote to act to control an external system.

15. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 14, wherein the microcontroller of the one or more motes is configured by instructions stored in a memory thereof to locally process sensor data and optionally to also apply one or more rules to the sensor data or locally processed sensor data and to further optionally take one or more actions based on the outcome of one or more of the rules.

16. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 15, wherein the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are pre-installed before installation of the mote devices in the environment.

17. Wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 15 or 16 when dependent on claim 12 or 13, wherein the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are definable in use based on received instructions originating from the middleware platform and/or web portal.

18. Wireless system network as claimed in any of claims 14 to 17 when dependent on claim 12 or 13, wherein the middleware server is configured such that the motes of the wireless sensor network are indicated in the stored sensor network control information as a data output channel of the middleware platform, and wherein the microcontrollers of the motes having control modules provided thereon are configured to operate the control modules to act to control an external system responsive to and based on control data received from the middleware platform.

19. A mote device for use in the wireless sensor network of any preceding claim, the mote device comprising: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with any mote devices and gateway devices within range in the wireless sensor network; plural sensor input ports each configured for electrically coupling to and receiving sensor data from a specific type of sensor; one or more sensors each coupled to a respective input port configured to receive that sensor, said sensors being selected so as to configure the wireless sensor network to sense the desired physical characteristics in the environment; and a microcontroller configured to: cause the coupled sensors to operate to sense the physical quantities; communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other mote devices and gateway devices within range to thereby form an wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; generate data based on the sensed physical quantities; receive data generated by other motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and send data based on sensed physical quantities generated by the mote or received from another mote to be routed in the wireless sensor network towards the gateway.

20. A mote device as claimed in claim 19, wherein the two or more or optionally all of the sensor input ports are arranged on a board juxtaposed side by side.

21. A mote device as claimed in claim 19 or 20 further comprising a mainboard having the microcontroller provided thereon, and a sensor board on which the input ports are arrayed, the sensor board being electronically connected to the microcontroller on the mainboard by a backplane or through a board to board connector coupling.

22. A mote device as claimed in claim 19, 20 or 21, further comprising a casing supporting the microcontroller, input ports and sensors, wherein the casing comprises a sensor mask blank arranged over the input ports, the mote being configured and blank being configured or designed to be user-configurable to expose the sensors inserted into the input ports, preferably configured to expose only those sensors, to allow them to measure their respective physical quantities in the environment.

23. A mote device as claimed in claim 22, wherein the casing of the mote is configured to generally protect the electronic components housed therein from the elements.

24. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 23, wherein the microcontroller is further configured to, in use, detect the type of any sensor coupled to the sensor input ports and retrieve and process signals generated thereby to generate the data based on the sensed physical quantities, wherein optionally the sensors coupled to the input ports are plug and play sensors having their respective electronic data sheets stored thereon.

25. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 24, wherein the mote has two or more input ports each configured to receive one of: a temperature sensor; a humidity sensor; a temperature and humidity sensor; an ambient light sensor; a proximity sensor; a distance sensor; a UV light sensor; a motion sensor; a vibration sensor; and accelerometer; a CMOS camera sensor.

26. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 25, wherein the mote is configured as an autonomous, energy self-sufficient, system having a secondary cell and a local energy harvesting system, optionally a photovoltaic cell, arranged to provide charge to the secondary cell in use.

27. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 26, wherein the microcontroller of the mote is configured for low power operation to intermittently power up the mote sensors and wireless communication module to periodically collect samples of the sensed physical quantities and transmit them towards to gateway.

28. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 27, wherein the mote is configured to communicate at least the data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat using MQTT-SN v1.0 or higher.

29. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 28, wherein the data based on sensed physical quantities includes data indicative of sensed physical quantities.

30. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 19 to 29, wherein one or more of the motes of the wireless sensor network further comprises a control module operable by the mote to act to control an external system.

31. A mote device as claimed in claim 30, wherein the microcontroller of the one or more motes is configured by instructions stored in a memory thereof to locally process sensor data and optionally to also apply one or more rules to the sensor data or locally processed sensor data and to further optionally take one or more actions based on the outcome of one or more of the rules.

32. A mote device as claimed in claim 31, wherein the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are pre-installed before installation of the mote devices in the environment.

33. A mote device as claimed in claim 30 or 31 for use in a wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 12 or 13, wherein the said instructions stored on the memory of the microcontroller are definable in use based on received instructions originating from the middleware platform and/or web portal.

34. A mote device as claimed in any of claims 30 to 33 for use in a wireless sensor network as claimed in claim 12 or 13, wherein the gateway of the wireless sensor network is configured such that the motes of the wireless sensor network are indicated in the stored sensor network control information as a data output channel of the middleware platform of the wireless sensor network, and wherein the microcontrollers of the motes having control modules provided thereon are configured to operate the control modules to act to control an external system responsive to and based on control data received from the middleware platform.

35. Gateway device for use in a wireless sensor network as claimed in any of claims 1 to 19, the gateway device comprising: a wireless communication module configured for data communication with motes within range in the wireless sensor network; a data communication unit configured to connect the gateway to the Internet; a data processing unit configured to: communicate, by operation of the wireless communication module, to: find other motes and gateways to thereby form a wireless ad hoc mesh network therebetween; and receive, by operation of the wireless communication module, data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and communicate, by operation of the data communication unit, to: transmit towards the internet data generated by motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat.

36. A server implementing a middleware platform for use in a wireless sensor network as claimed in any of claims 1 to 19, the server comprising: a data communication module configured to provide a connection with the Internet for communication with a gateway of the wireless sensor network; a logical module configured: to receive, by operation of the data communication module, from the gateway via the data connection module data generated by the motes of the wireless sensor network based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; to maintain sensor network control information indicative of: zero or more wireless sensor network data output channels; zero or more actions to take to output data on a data output channel; and zero or more rules to be applied to received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and to operate a middleware engine configured to: apply the rules to the received data generated by the motes based on the sensed physical quantities thereat; and carry out the actions appropriately triggered by the rules to operate the data communication module to output data on the appropriate wireless sensor network data output channels.

37. Method of providing a wireless sensor network for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment, comprising: installing a gateway device as claimed in claim 36 in the environment and connecting the data communication unit of the gateway to the internet; configuring a plurality of mote devices as claimed in any of claims 19-35 to sense the desired selection of physical quantities in the environment by coupling one or more appropriate sensors for sensing the desired selection of physical quantities to the relevant specifically configured sensor input port of the mote; and installing each of the plurality of motes at a respective sensing location in the environment, each within range of at least one other mote or the gateway.

38. The method of claim 37, further comprising: providing a server implementing a middleware platform as claimed in claim 36 and configuring the server and the gateway to communicate with each other; and providing, by a web server to a browser of a client, a web portal, said web portal being logically coupled to said middleware platform to define the sensor network control information maintained thereat, said web portal being operable by a user of said client device to set the sensor network control information maintained on the middleware platform.

39. Wireless sensor network substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.

40. A mote device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.

41. A gateway device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.

42. A server implementing a middleware platform for use in a wireless sensor network substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.

43. Method of providing a wireless sensor network for sensing a desired selection of physical quantities in an environment substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the drawings.