"During the last decade we have witnessed an intensive growth of digital wireless and mobile communications systems. Among the different wireless technologies, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have emerged recently as a new networking environment that provides end users with intelligence and a better understanding and interaction with the environment. Because of their wide variety of applications we envision that, in the near future, wireless sensor networks will become an integral part of our lives. The present project is embedded in one of the most challenging innovation paths, affecting in a convergent mode both Wireless Communications and Information Technology. The main objective is the transfer of knowledge between the industrial and the academic partners of the consortium in fields and technologies where they are specialised. The main objectives of the research project include: * Definitions of a protocol stack architecture able to accommodate a rich variety of sensor devices and applications. * Propose Cross-Layer techniques that can be used in order to enhance the efficiency of WSN. * Propose new efficient cooperative protocols network coding schemes for WSN. * Propose effective, efficient and resilient security techniques to protect the Cross-Layer algorithms and cooperative protocols. * Adapt the all the proposed protocols and algorithms to the requirements of healthcare applications. * Develop a prototype for demonstrating and validate the feasibility of the proposed approaches. * Dissemination of the project results contributing to technical journals and conferences in the course of the project lifetime."