Since the 1990’s researchers in both academia and industry have been exploring ways to exploit the potential of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), revolutionising our understanding of and interaction with the world around us. Over the past 20 years, WSNs have developed into a major research area. In the past decade, the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) group at the Tyndall National Institute, has been at the forefront of this research. Our work on embedded systems has been driven by a vision of ubiquitous deployment, extended lifetime and low power consumption, providing information-rich data streams wirelessly in (close to) real-time. As part of the smart sensing research clusters in Tyndall National Institute (Human Centric Systems, Smart Agriculture and Bio-Electronics), WSN researchers are working to develop sensing solutions that have real societal impact and address some of the grand challenges apparent in the world around us. Within the research clusters, WSN smart systems researchers have a number of goals. We aim to reduce the burden on healthcare systems by making a substantive contribution to the Healthy Living agenda, specifically addressing staying healthy and living and working in health promoting environments through the development of smart sensing systems on and around the body. These wireless sensing devices will provide real time datasets and information regarding peoples’ activities, physiological health information at work and at home. These Human Centric Systems will inform an individuals’ decision making capability regarding their wellbeing needs. We are also working on smart manufacturing applications. We aim to support industry by developing AI-based Human Machine Interfaces, and collaborative robotic capability enabling interoperability in the workplace using smart connectivity platforms with edge capability. Tyndalls smart sensing system solutions are based on a holistic approach, collecting, combining and analysing environmental, occupational and human health-related data, for analytics at the edge (of the edge) of the cloud, to provide real time data sets for informed decision making in relevant application domains. The research platforms underpinning the smart systems research include:

• RF/Antenna design for around/on/in body communications;
• Wireless, low power sensing systems: batteryless NFC sensors, integrated circuits and MEMs for around/on/in body sensing;
• Flexible Materials and Systems Integration: sustainable and biocompatible materials for human centric, “zero power” wearable applications;
• AI on the Edge: edge analytics for on-device M/L models, interoperable platforms, human machine interfaces, 5G