VIRTUAL LAB EXPERIMENT -2

OBJECTIVE:

1. Understand basic concepts about Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), types, applications of
WSN.
2. Gain familiarity with LEACH, a cluster based routing protocol for WSNs.

THEORY:
Wireless Sensor Networks
A Sensor network is composed of a large number of sensor nodes that are deployed in a wide area
with very low powered sensor nodes. The wireless sensor networks can be utilized in a various
information and telecommunications applications. The sensor nodes are very small devices with
wireless communication capability, which can collect information about sound, light, motion,
temperature etc. and processed different sensed information and transfers it to the other nodes. The
following figure-01 illustrated the Wireless Sensor Network scenario.

Basic Characteristics of WSNs

Wireless Sensor Networks are:
1. Self-configuration, Self-healing, Self-optimization, and Self-protection capabilities
2. Short-range broadcast communication and multi-hop routing
3. Dense deployment and cooperative effort of sensor nodes
4. Frequently changing topology due to fading and node failures
5. Severe limitations in energy capacity, computing power, memory, and transmit power.

Differences with Mobile Ad hoc Networks

We studied mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), it is made up of a number of wireless mobile

nodes. However, there are significant differences between MANETs and WSNs.
The number of sensor nodes in a sensor network is much more than that in an ad hoc network.
Usually sensor networks consist of 1,000 to 10,000 sensor nodes covering the area.
Sensor nodes are generally static and cooperate together to transfer the sensed data.
In mobile ad hoc networks, the number of nodes are much less, but their mobility is very high.
Sensor nodes mainly use the broadcast communication paradigm, whereas most ad hoc networks
are based on point-to-point communication.
Another difference between the two is that sensor nodes have a much lower power consumption
requirement, of the order of 0.75 mW.

Types of Wireless Sensor Networks

Terrestrial wireless sensor networks
1. Ad-Hoc (unstructured)
2. Preplanned (structured)

Underground wireless sensor networks

1. Preplanned
2. More expensive equipment, deployment, maintenance

Underwater wireless sensor networks

1. Fewer sensor nodes (sparse deployment)
2. More expensive than terrestrial
3. Acoustic wave communication
4. Limited bandwidth
5. Long propagation delay
6. Signal fading

Multi-media wireless sensor networks

1. Sensor nodes equipped with cameras and microphones.
2. High bandwidth/low energy, QoS, filtering, data processing and compressing techniques

Mobile wireless sensor networks

1. Ability to reposition and organize itself in the network
2. Start with initial deployment and spread out to gather information
3. Deployment, localization, self-organizations, navigation and control, coverage, energy,
maintenance, data process etc.

The LEACH Protocol

LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) is a cluster-based routing protocol for WSNs.
It adapts the clustering concept to distribute the energy among the sensor nodes in the network. It
improves the energy-efficiency of WSN beyond the normal clustering architecture. It uses a
TDMA/CDMA MAC to reduce inter-cluster and intra-cluster collisions. As a result, we can extend
the life time of our network, and this is the very important issue that is considered in the WSN field.
Applications of WSNs

The applications of WSNs are innumerable, since each sensor node is capable of monitoring a wide
variety of ambient conditions such as temperature, humidity, lightning condition, pressure and noise
levels. Below, we have given some typical application areas for WSNs. 

Military applications: Sensor nodes can be spread across a battlefield or enemy area and be
programmed to track and monitor enemy troop movements or movement of terrorists and can be
used to locate their exact positions.

Environmental applications: Sensor networks are being increasingly used for environmental
concerns. Examples include tracking the nesting habits of seabirds by monitoring a large geographic
region with human presence, or attaching the sensors directly to large mammals to monitor their
behavior.

Monitoring of river currents is another application of WSNs, to measure their water inflow and
mixture from various sources. Water-quality monitoring may also be useful to determine
contamination with bacteria or other harmful pollutants.

The spread of sensor nodes across a forest to monitor temperatures and give early warnings of fire
outbreaks. Weather prediction, climate monitoring, distributed computing, pollution tracking,
seismic detection, detecting ambient conditions such as temperature, movement, sound, light, or the
presence of certain objects, inventory control and disaster management are other similar
applications.

Medical applications: WSNs can be used in medical applications by using the sensor node as a
device that can reside on or within the human body and perform tasks that are currently done by
costly machines. These include glucose monitors for continuous reading of insulin levels in diabetic
patients; heart monitors for keeping track of the functioning of the heart, especially for patients with
irregular heartbeats or coronary diseases; and artificial retinal and cortical implants to electronically
transmit information to visually impaired persons.

Other medical applications include use in monitoring of human physiological data, tracking and
monitoring doctors and patients inside a hospital and insurance cards.

Industrial applications: For use in industrial applications, low-cost sensor nodes could be attached
to equipment to monitor performance. They could also be attached to parts as they move through an
assembly pipeline on the shop floor. Thus, inefficiencies in plant process flow can be recognized
quickly, rush orders could be expedited more easily and customer queries could be answered faster
and more accurately.
Urban applications: WSNs can be used for various urban applications like transportation and
traffic systems, auto-identification by driving license, parking availability, security monitors in
shopping malls, parking garages, city streets and home security.
Some of the real applications are:
Volcano Sensor-web: This system has been used to implement a global surveillance program to
study volcanoes. Sensor-web tests to study flooding, cryosphere events, and atmospheric
phenomena.

Wireless sensor network system for landslide detection: This system is already in place at
Anthoniar Colony, Munnar, Idukki, Kerala, India.

Simulating a WSN using Network Simulator 2

For simulating a WSN using NS2, a Mannasim simulator is required where LEACH script
generator is available.
Mannasim Simulator :
Mannasim is a open source Wireless Sensor Networks simulation environment comprised of two
solutions:
- The Mannasim Framework
- The Script Generator Tool
The Mannasim Framework is a module for WSN simulation based on the Network Simulator (NS-
2). Mannasim extends NS-2 introducing new modules for design, development and analysis of
different WSN applications.
The Script Generator Tool (SGT) is a front-end for TCL simulation scripts easy creation. SGT
comes blunded with Mannasim Framework.

Trace File Analysis

A simple tool has been provided as part of this lab to analyze the trace files generated
after simulation with ns2. A summary of the available options, and usage guide is given
below.

Features List

Following is a list of functionalities provided by the Trace Analysis tool:

1. Trace file formats:Following trace file formats are being supported:
2. Wired
3. Wireless (new format)
4. Satellite -- currently redirects to wired mode
5. Mixed -- when both wired and wireless connections are present in the simulation
6. General Statistics:To provide some common statistics about the simulation being run.
Currently displays only the simulation duration.
7. Inputs:None
8. Output:Text
9. Average Throughput:Computes total # of bytes received by a node over the entire
simulation duration
SIMULATIONS:
SELF- EVALUATION :-
LIMITATION:
For analyzing the problems in the "Satellite Networks" experiment, please use the wired
mode of analysis
1.Analysis of trace files for mixed mode of simulations (wired & wireless) is not supported
currently
2.Outputs produced do not necessarily have accuracy for scientific publications. In
particular, the plot of hop counts may vary a bit from the original count (in wireless mode)
in cases when a packet has been forwarded to more than one node.
3.The tool currently allows only a single instance of a given type of plot. For example, this
doesn't let you plot end-to-end delays between multiple (source, destination) node pairs.

SUBMITTED BY:
HARSHIT GARG
9917102215
E7