Integration of Wireless Sensor Networks in the Computer Science and Engineering Curricula

Recent, development in wireless networks, micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, and digital electronics have led to the emergence of Wireless Sensor networks (WSNs). A wireless sensor network consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors that cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, light, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants 1 . These networks consist of small battery–powered motes with limited computation and radio communication capabilities. Each sensor in a sensor network consisting of three subsystems: the sensor which senses the environment, the processing subsystem which performs local computations on the sensed data, and the communication subsystem which is responsible for message exchanges with neighboring sensors. Wireless Sensor Network is an active area of research with numerous applications. Some of the applications of WSNs includes homeland security, health care system, monitoring of space assets for potential and human-made threats in space, ground-based monitoring of both land and water, intelligence gathering for defense, environmental monitoring, urban warfare, weather and climate analysis and prediction, battlefield monitoring and surveillance, exploration of the Solar System and beyond, monitoring of seismic acceleration, temperature, wind speed and GPS data 2 . A quality education requires exposing students to the current edge of research and technology. To ensure that student projects are complementary to industrial development, educators must continually introduce emerging techniques, technology, practices, and applications into their curriculum. The field of wireless sensor networks is growing rapidly and has captured the interest of various sectors. The increasing popularity of WSN has motivated universities to provide students with a foundation in the area. It is crucial that the emerging field of wireless sensor networks be integrated into the computer science and engineering curriculums. This paper studies the different approaches that are used by different institutions of higher education around the world to integrate wireless sensor networks concepts into their curriculum.