A Raspberry Pi Mesh Sensor Network for Portable Perimeter Security

Wireless sensor networks play an important role for perimeter monitoring in remote environments. While commercial wireless sensor networks for providing audio-visual monitoring exist, they are often expensive to deploy. In this paper, we describe and implement a wireless mesh network consisting of inexpensive battery-operated Raspberry Pi nodes. The choice of the Raspberry Pi enables the construction of cost-effective sensor nodes that are extendable and expendable. We conduct a series of test to illustrate the efficacy of our network in a building monitoring use case. Our nodes can be built for as little as 49.00 per node and is capable of node-to-node transmission of up to 50 feet. Custom sleep states enable battery life to last 14 hours on 4 AA batteries. Our results support our thesis that an all-Pi mesh sensor is capable of providing portable perimeter security.