ADHOC AND SENSOR

NETWORKS
ASSIGNMENT - 1

Rukul Pratap Singh

ECE-1
08310102816
Q1: Why Energy efficiency / Energy efficient protocols are vital for wireless sensor
networks?
A1: Sensors have battery constraints i.e. batteries are not rechargeable nor replaceable.
Therefore, it become significant issue to save the energy of sensor nodes, in such a way that
the overall lifetime can be increased.
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) generally consist of considerable sensor nodes (SNs) with
limited energy. WSNs are randomly deployed in a particular region to acquire various types
of environmental parameters and transmit information to the base station (BS) for monitoring
and detecting applications. They have been widely adopted in forest fire detection,
surveillance and military, human health detection, etc. Because WSNs are usually deployed
in hazardous environments, recharging or replacing the batteries of the SNs is very difficult.
Moreover, the manual operation of the network is highly difficult, which brings some
challenges regarding the application of WSNs.
To remedy these drawbacks, the efficient use of the battery energy of SNs should be considered
as a primary goal when researchers design protocols and hardware architectures. Therefore,
several routing protocols have been proposed to render the sensor network more energy
efficient.

Q2: Explain the different types of architecture proposed for wireless sensor networks?
A2: Wireless sensor networks follows most common architecture OSI model. Basically, there
are five layers in sensor network. These are application layer, transport layer, network layer,
data link layer and physical layer. There are three cross layers planes added to those above five
layers of OSI model i.e. power management plane, connection management plane, task
management plane. These layers are used to manage the network connectivity and allows the
nodes to work together to increase the overall efficiency of the network.
The three cross planes or layers are:

1) Power management plane: It is responsible for managing the power level of sensor nodes
for processing, sensing and communication.

2) Connection management plane: It is responsible for configuration or reconfiguration of

sensor nodes in attempt to establish or maintain network connectivity.

3) Task management plane: It is responsible for distribution of tasks among sensor nodes to
prolong network lifetime and improve energy efficiency.

Q3: Differentiate between hierarchical routing protocols and flat routing protocols?
A3:

Hierarchical Routing Flat Routing

Reservation based scheduling. Contention based scheduling.
Collisions avoided. Collision overhead present.
Reduced duty cycle due to periodic sleeping. Variable duty cycle by controlling sleep
time of nodes.
Data aggregation by cluster head. Node on multi-hop path aggregates
incoming data from neighbors.

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 Simple but non-optimal routing.
Requires global and local
synchronization.
Overhead of cluster formation throughout
the network.
Lower latency as multiple hop network
formed by cluster heads always available.
Energy dissipation is uniform.
Energy dissipation cannot be controlled.
Fair channel allocation.
Routing can be made optimal but with an
added complexity.
Links formed on the fly without
synchronization.
Routes formed only in regions that have
data for transmission.
Latency in waking up intermediate nodes
and setting up the multipath.
Energy dissipation depends on traffic
patterns.
Energy dissipation adapts to traffic
patterns.
Fairness not guaranteed.

Q4: Explain LEACH protocol in detail.

A4: Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol is a TDMA based MAC
protocol. The principal aim of this protocol is to improve the lifespan of wireless sensor
networks by lowering the energy consumption required to create and maintain Cluster Heads.
The operation of LEACH protocol consists of several rounds with two phases: Set-up Phase
and Steady Phase.
In the Set-up phase the main goal is to make cluster and select the cluster head for each of the
cluster by choosing the sensor node with maximum energy. Steady Phase which is
comparatively longer in duration than the set-up deals mainly with the aggregation of data at
the cluster heads and transmission of aggregated data to the Base station.
The algorithm for LEACH protocol is as follows: The first phase of LEACH is Set-up phase
and it has three fundamental steps:
1. Cluster Head advertisement
2. Cluster setup
3. Creation of Transmission Schedule
During the first step cluster head sends the advertisement packet to inform the cluster nodes
that they have become a cluster head on the basis of the formula.
In the second step, the non-cluster head nodes receive the cluster head advertisement and then
send join request to the cluster head informing that they are the members of the cluster under
that cluster head. These non-cluster head nodes saves a lot of energy by turning off their
transmitter all the time and turn it ON only when they have something to transmit to the cluster
head.
In the third step, each of the chosen cluster head creates a transmission schedule for the member
nodes of their cluster. TDMA schedule is created according to the number of nodes in the
cluster. Each node then transmits its data in the allocated time schedule.
The second phase of LEACH is the Steady phase during which the cluster nodes send their
data to the cluster head. The member sensors in each cluster communicate only with the cluster
head via a single hop transmission. The cluster head then aggregates all the collected data and
forwards this data to the base station either directly or via other cluster head along with the
static route defined in the source code. After the certain predefined time, which is decided
beforehand, the network again goes back to the Set-up phase.

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Advantages of LEACH protocol:
1. The Cluster Heads aggregates the whole data which lead to reduce the traffic in the
entire network.
2. As there is a single hop routing from nodes to cluster head it results in saving energy.
3. It increases the lifetime of the sensor network. Base Station Base Station Cluster Head.
4. In this, location information of the nodes to create the cluster is not required.
5. LEACH is completely distributed as it does not need any control information from the
base station as well as no global knowledge of the network is required.
Demerits of LEACH protocol:
1. LEACH does not give any idea about the number of cluster heads in the network.
2. One of the biggest disadvantage of LEACH is that when due to any reason Cluster head
dies, the cluster will become useless because the data gathered by the cluster nodes
would never reach its destination i.e. Base Station.
3. Clusters are divided randomly, which results in uneven distribution of Clusters. For
e.g. some clusters have more nodes and some have lesser nodes. Some cluster heads at
the center of the cluster and some cluster heads may be in the edge of the cluster; this
phenomenon can cause an increase in energy consumption and have great impact on
the performance of the entire network.

Q5: Why multi-hop routing is required for wireless sensor networks?

A5: The purpose is to reduce the energy consumption by reducing the number of nodes
relaying the data from source to destination. Energy aware routing with the possibility of
energy replenishment of nodes in multi-hop wireless sensor networks.
Stochastic geometric and queueing models are used for the evaluation of different types of
scenarios. Energy aware routing with the possibility of energy replenishment of nodes in multi-
hop wireless sensor networks.

Q6: Differentiate between Sensor network and Adhoc network?

A6:
Feature Sensor Network Adhoc Network
Number of sensor nodes Large in quantity Medium in quantity
Deployment type Very much dense Scattered
Rate of failure More Very rare
Change in N/W topology Frequency Rare
Communication mode Broadcast Point to point
Battery Not replaceable /Not Replaceable
chargeable
Centric mode Based on data Based on address
Fusion/Aggregation Possible Not suitable
Computational capacities Limited Not limited
and memory requirement
Data rate support provided Lower Higher
Redundancy High Low
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Q7: List and Explain any power aware routing in WSN?

A7: Energy efficiency should always be considered when carrying out routing, data
dissemination or any kind of general network management, which affects the lifetime of the
network. Control packets, retransmitting collided packets, extra overhead and idle listening
may lead to the waste of energy. The requirement for several WSN routing protocols like is to
bring forward a route to the base station, which needs low overhead and extremely low control
packets.
WSN can broadly divide power aware routing protocols into two classifications: Activity based
and Connectivity based protocols. Activity based protocols address the issue of power
consumption as it relates to network activity, i.e. the actual transmission of data between nodes
in the network. These protocols focus on making intelligent, power aware routing decisions
that govern the actual transmission of data. Further divide activity based protocols into two
classifications based on different routing tasks: unicasting and multicasting/broadcasting.
Within the unicasting context note that existing protocols focus on two separate issues:
maximal energy saving during delivery of a single packet (also known as active energy saving)
and maximizing overall network lifetime. Active energy saving protocols focus on minimizing
the total consumed power per packet. Their main goal is to choose a routing path for the
delivery of an individual packet that consumes the minimal amount of energy. For 64 protocols
that maximize overall network lifetime, the main focus is to distribute the energy consumption
among all nodes in a balanced manner. If the route with the maximal energy saving is always
chosen for delivery, the subset of nodes along this route will be over utilized and therefore
drained in a short period of time, which may lead to network partitioning. Finally, power-
efficient multicasting/broadcasting protocols deal with power efficiency when a single
message is sent to multiple destinations. With the goal of reducing power consumption while
ensuring effective connectivity for the overall network, connectivity-based protocols look
beyond issues of transmission. Maintaining effective connectivity for a wireless network is
essential to almost any operation. If the connectivity of a wireless network is too dense, it
causes frequent interference among nodes. If the connectivity is too sparse, the network is
sensitive to node or link failure. Connectivity based protocols are divided into two categories:
topology control and passive energy saving. Topology control protocols adjust nodes
transmitting power to save energy while maintaining effective network connectivity. Passive
energy saving protocols save energy by simply turning off some idle nodes, since energy
consumption when a node’s radio is idle is not negligible.

Q8: What are the different components of a WSN?

A8: Components of WSN are:
1. Sensor node
2. Relay node
3. Actor node
4. Cluster head
5. Gateway
6. Base station.
Sensor node: Capable of executing data processing, data gathering and communicating
with additional associated nodes in the network. A distinctive sensor node capability is
about 4-8 MHz, having 4 KB of RAM, 128 KB flash and preferably 916 MHz of radio
frequency.

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 Relay node: It is a midway node used to communicate with the adjacent node. It is used
to enhance the network reliability. A rely node is a special type of field device that does
not have process sensor or control equipment and as such does not interface with the 7
process itself. A distinctive rely node processor speed is about 8 MHz, having 8 KB of
RAM, 128 KB flash and preferably 916 MHz of radio frequency.
Actor node: It is a high end node used to perform and construct a decision depending upon
the application requirements. Typically these nodes are resource rich devices which are
outfitted with high quality processing capabilities, greater transmission powers and
greater battery life. A distinctive actor node processor capability is about 8 MHz, having
16 KB of RAM, 128 KB flash and preferably 916 MHz of radio frequency.
Cluster head: It is a high bandwidth sensing node used to perform data fusion and data
aggregation functions in WSN. Based on the system requirements and applications, there
will be more than one cluster head inside the cluster. A distinctive cluster head processor
is about 4-8 MHz, having 512 KB of RAM, 4 MB flash and preferably 2.4 GHz of radio
frequency. This node assumed to be highly reliable, secure and is trusted by all the nodes
in the sensor network.
Gateway: Gateway is an interface between sensor networks and outside networks.
Compared with the sensor node and cluster head the gateway node is most powerful in
terms of program and data memory, the processor used, transceiver range and the
possibility of expansion through external memory. A distinctive gateway processor speed
is about 16 MHz, having 512 KB of RAM, 32 MB flash and preferably 2.4 GHz of radio
frequency.
Base station: It is an extraordinary type of nodes having high computational energy and
processing capability

Q9: Explain any one method for sensor network localization?

A9: Localization schemes are classified as anchor based or anchor free, centralized or
distributed, GPS based or GPS free, fine grained or coarse grained, stationary or mobile sensor
nodes, and range based or range free.
In APIT (approximate point in triangulation) scheme, anchor nodes get location information
from GPS or transmitters. Unlocalized node gets location information from overlapping
triangles. The area is divided into overlapping triangles. In APIT, the following four steps are
included:
1. Unlocalized nodes maintain table after receiving beacon messages from anchor nodes. The
table contains information of anchor ID, location, and signal strength.
2. Unlocalized nodes select any three anchor nodes from area and check whether they are in
triangle form. This test is called PIT (Point In Triangulation) test.
3. PIT test continue until accuracy of unlocalized node location is found by combination of
any three anchor nodes.
4. At the end, Center of gravity (COG) is calculated, which is intersection of all triangles
where an unlocalized node is placed to find its estimated position.

Q10: List different factors responsible for defining quality of a sensor network?
A10: Factors responsible for defining quality of a sensor network are:
1. Number of nodes.

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2. Power Consumption
3. Life span of the sensors.
4. Information to be sensed and its timing.
5. Geography of where the sensors are placed.
6. The environment.
7. The context.

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