Design and implementation of wireless sensors and applications for the Internet of Things

In the internet of things vision, devices and objects will be connected to the Internet and will be able to communicate with each other and with humans in real time and to make autonomous decisions. While continuous communication capabilities improve, wireless sensor networks and smart devices usually communicate and share data with a central base station and using a dedicated platform developed for a specific application. Developing a new application that is interoperable with existing devices or integrating composite applications into an existing platform is today a hard and challenging task requiring advanced development experience. The lack of a common platform with well-defined interoperability interfaces has made heterogeneous sensors networks and smart devices hard to integrate into composite applications and into the Internet, slowing the diffusion of Internet of Things applications. This research focuses on the design of wireless sensors and applications based on a new open, complete, flexible and scalable platform for the Internet of Things. The main contributions of this thesis are: 1. The proposal of a platform able to integrate heterogeneous devices and sensor networks, communication protocols and multiple applications and to be easily deployed and reconfigured with no need of modifying the existing infrastructure. 2. The design and implementation of a Smart Grid power metering system allowing non-technical users to control energy consumption and production, and to securely exchange power usage data at the proper level of granularity with energy providers and distributors. 3. The design and implementation of a Remote Health monitoring for long-term high-quality non-intrusive ECG monitoring, where a wide coverage and a low cost is required (at home or in a nursing home). Based on the IoT platform the system offers the possibility to combine and integrate health sensors with smart home sensors, while ensuring secure and differentiated access to data. It also provides access to historical data and to real-time data.