• The KIPS Transactions:PartC
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• v.14C no.4
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• pp.371-382
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a real-time sensor node platform that efficiently manages periodic and aperiodic tasks. Since existing sensor node platforms available in literature focus on minimizing the usage of memory and power consumptions, they are not capable of supporting the management of tasks that need their real-time execution and fast average response time. We first analyze how to structure periodic or aperiodic task decomposition in the TinyOS-based sensor node platform as regard to guaranteeing the deadlines of ail the periodic tasks and aiming to providing aperiodic tasks with average good response time. Then we present the application and efficiency of the proposed real-time sensor node platform in the sensor node equipped with a low-power 8-bit microcontroller, an IEEE802.15.4 compliant 2.4GHz RF transceiver, and several sensors. Extensive experiments show that our sensor node platform yields efficient performance in terms of three significant, objective goals: deadline miss ratio of periodic tasks, average response time of aperiodic tasks, and processor utilization of periodic and aperiodic tasks.