Antenna design constrains for Wireless mobile Sensor Networks in Harsh Environments

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) represent a key point of application and research in the next future. WSNs are applied in many technological areas, including environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, traffic control, industrial automation, industrial production management, logistics, e.g. the work published by Xu et al. (2004). Many researchers are developing studies to analyze the use of WSNs for an increasing number of applications, looking for optimized solutions in terms of power consumption, available bandwidth, sensor dimensions, computational speed, realization costs (Manges, 1999). Compared to analogous solutions, WSNs are particularly efficient and interesting, if exploited in complex scenarios, where wired sensors cannot be used, or the sensor itself is a moveable one, e.g., the application proposed in the work of Wark et al. (2007). In this framework, a mobile wireless technological solution for leakage monitoring in water pipes, based on the use of acoustic sensors, has been recently introduced (Trinchero et al., 2009).