Patent ID: 8836577

Claim:
A wireless sensor network system comprising: a plurality of sensor devices each having a non-directional antenna; and an information gathering apparatus having an adaptive array antenna and gathering information detected by the plurality of sensor devices, wherein the wireless sensor network system wirelessly connects the plurality of sensor devices to the information gathering apparatus, each sensor device of the plurality of sensor devices includes a transmitter to transmit a transmission request for connecting to the information gathering apparatus, and the information gathering apparatus includes, a directivity-changing section configured to set the adaptive array antenna to be non-directional and to change a directivity of the adaptive array antenna in accordance with whether the transmission request was transmitted from at least one of an unconnected sensor device and an unconnected sensor device via a connected sensor device, wherein the directivity-changing section is further configured to determine whether the transmission request was transmitted from one of an unconnected sensor device or from an unconnected sensor device via a connected sensor device, and to change the directivity of the adaptive array antenna to be a directional pattern when it is determined that the transmission request was transmitted from a connected sensor, and wherein the directivity-changing section is configured to set the adaptive array antenna to be non-directional when it is determined that the transmission request was transmitted from an unconnected sensor device via a connected sensor device.