Smart Reconfigurable Plasma Antennas for Seamless Sensor Network Communications

*Haleakala R&D Inc. and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will develop novel approaches for space-time coding of sensor networks to convert spatially distributed sensor nodes into efficient, robust and secure wireless networks. Contemporary and future sensor network applications are expected to utilize anywhere from 10 to 1000 or more individual sensors in potentially hostile and militarily sensitive environments. Each sensor is likely to be required to support secure data-intensive collection and dissemination in a robust and oftentimes covert fashion. We propose a space-time diversity scheme for multi-transmit systems with specific applications to CDMA sensor networks. This research proposes a scheme which groups transmission and reception network nodes into cooperative clusters of simple nodes A few examples of wireless multi-hop networks that would benefit from the proposed research are: 1. A set of rovers with sensors used for unmanned exploration. 2. A collection of interconnected sensors 3. monitoring the different parts of a plant for maintenance purposes. 4. Communications units, used by a maintenance team in a plant, that link to each other as well as to a sensor network in the plant and a parts' inventory database..5. A network of rovers with sensors deployed over a dangerous terrain.