Proposal for a wireless sensor network visualization system using location estimation technology

In recent years, popularization of wireless sensor networks in various fields including smart houses and environment monitoring systems at factories has been expected. However, it is difficult to grasp the structure and connectivity of dynamically changing networks, because sensor networks are connected by radio waves with each other. For that reason, it will be useful if the location of sensor devices and the structure of wireless sensor networks can be confirmed by visual observation at the time of maintenance or troubleshooting. In this paper, we propose a visualization system for wireless sensor networks using a tablet and location estimation technology. In our proposed system, we make it possible to observe the wireless sensor networks by eyes, by displaying the virtual object representing sensor device link information and sensing data, on the screen of the tablet whose location is estimated. We confirmed that the virtual object is superimposedly displayed in the sensor device on the camera screen, by implementing to iPad a prototype of the algorithm to estimate the locational relationship between the tablet and sensor devices.