Wireless Sensor Networks

Dr Usha Raghavan
 Introduction
 Sensor networks are highly distributed networks of small,
lightweight wireless node, deployed in large numbers to monitor
the environment or system.

 Each node of the sensor networks consist of three subsystem:

 Sensor subsystem: senses the environment
 Processing subsystem: performs local computations on the
sensed data
 Communication subsystem: responsible for message
exchange with neighboring sensor nodes
•Wireless sensor networks can be defined as a self – configured
and infrastructure –less wireless networks to monitor physical or
environmental conditions like temperature, sound, vibration,
pressure, motion or pollutants and transfer the data through the
network to a main location or Sink where the data can be
observed and Analysed
•They are a special case of Adhoc network with zero mobility
and are known as “Data Centric”
•The sensor node sense the parameters and transmits the
values only once or over the period of time
 Wireless Sensor Networks

Gateway sensor node provides wireless connectivity to the

wired world and the distributed nodes
Advantages of Wireless sensor Networks
 Flexible: WSN is a flexible network and can
adapt to the changes.
 It avoids Wiring
 Addition of New Device: WSN can
accommodate new devices in the network any
time with ease.
 Save Cost: Wireless sensor networks save a lot
of wiring cost and sensors like PIR detectors are
relatively cheaper then wires.
 It can be accessed through a centralized monitor
Disadvantages of WSN
 Security : It is not fully secure. Hackers hack
the network easily.
 Short battery life: Nodes need to be charged at
regular intervals
 Communication speed is very poor,.
 It is distracted by other wireless devices like
Bluetooth.
Mesh Networking
 Wireless mesh network is a network which comprises
various wireless nodes with access points.
 Each node in the network acts as a forwarding node
to transfer the data.
 Since the network is decentralized, forwarding of data
is possible only to the neighboring node. This results
in the network structure simple and easy.
 Wireless Mesh Network makes the people connected
with the Internet who work at remote areas and
operating business.
•Wireless mesh network is the architecture which provides less
mobility with low cost within a radio range.
•WMN is an infrastructure which is a network of routers minus
cabling between the nodes.
• It consists of radio nodes which need not to be cabled to a
wired port like the conventional wireless access points.
• Shortest hops are predicted to transmit the data toward large
distance
•Nodes between the source and destination act as a forwarding
node which works cooperatively in making decisions in route
prediction based on the topology and forwarding the data.
Applications of WSN
 Characteristics of WSN
Low Cost: In WSN thousands of sensor nodes are used to measure any
physical environment. The cost of sensor nodes has to be controlled to keep
the cost of the system low.
Energy Efficient The sensor nodes consume more energy compared to any
other for communication.Recharge option has to be provided
Communication Capabilities : Radio waves are used to communicate over
wireless channel. It has the property of communicating over short range with
narrow and dynamic bandwidth Channel can be uni directional or
bidirectional
Security: Each sensor node should have sufficient security mechanisms in
order to have unauthorized access attacks and unintentional damage of
information
Dynamic topology : The WSN nodes should have the ability to reconfigure
and self adjustments if any of the nodes are not functional
Multi hop communication :Since the number of nodes is large the nodes
should be able to communicate through multi hop route
Robust Operation: Sensor nodes need to be fault and error tolerant. They
should have the ability to self- test Self- calibrate and self -repair
Block diagram of sensor node
Controller
The controller performs tasks, processes data and controls the functionality of
other components in the sensor node.
Transceiver
Sensor nodes often make use of ISM band, which gives free radio, spectrum
allocation and global availability. The possible choices of wireless
transmission media are radio frequency (RF), optical communication (laser)
and infrared. Lasers require less energy , but need direct line of sight
communication and are sensitive to atmospheric conditions.
A significant amount of power is consumed when switching from sleep mode
to transmit mode in order to transmit a packet.
External memory
Flash memories are used due to their cost and storage capacity. Memory
requirements are application dependent.
Power source
Two power saving policies used are Dynamic Power Management (DPM)
andDynamic voltage Scaling (DVS). DPM conserves power by shutting down
parts of the sensor node which are not currently used or active. A DVS
scheme varies the power levels within the sensor node depending on the
non-deterministic workload.
Clustering of WSN
 Clustering is one of the important methods for
prolonging the network lifetime in wireless sensor
networks (WSNs).
 It involves grouping of sensor nodes into clusters and
electing cluster heads (CHs) for all the clusters.
 A major challenge in WSNs is to select
appropriate cluster heads.
 Clustering is partitioning of sensor networks which not
only allows aggregation of sensed data but limits data
transmission within the cluster. This reduces the traffic
•Beacon signals are transmitted for determining the close by
sensor nodes.
•Sensor nodes in a cluster can transmit directly to their respective
cluster head(CH) without any intermediate sensor nodes. This
minimizes the energy consumed with individual clusters
•Cluster Head also need to transmit information to other cluster
head and the energy consumed in wireless transmission is directly
proportional to square of distance d between the sensor node
acting as cluster head
•Hence it is desirable to partition a WSN into cluster in such a way
that all the sensor nodes in a cluster is reachable by path length
less than d
•The sensor node with maximum neighboring node is selected as
the cluster Head. It may drain faster than other sensor nodes. So
a dynamically changing cluster Head is also suggested to evenly
distribute energy consumption
Types of WSNs (Wireless Sensor
Networks)
 Terrestrial WSNs
 Underground WSNs
 Underwater WSNs
 Multimedia WSNs
 Mobile WSNs
Terrestrial WSNs
Terrestrial WSNs are capable of communicating base stations
efficiently, and consist of hundreds to thousands of wireless
sensor nodes deployed either in unstructured (ad hoc) or
structured (Preplanned) manner. In an unstructured mode,
the sensor nodes are randomly distributed within the target
area that is dropped from a fixed plane.
In this WSN, the battery power is limited; however, the battery
is equipped with solar cells as a secondary power source.
Underground WSNs
The underground wireless sensor networks are more
expensive than the terrestrial WSNs in terms of
deployment, maintenance, and equipment cost
considerations and careful planning. The WSNs
networks consist of a number of sensor nodes that are
hidden in the ground to monitor underground conditions.
To relay information from the sensor nodes to the base
station, additional sink nodes are located above the
ground.
Under Water WSNs
More than 70% of the earth is occupied with water. These
networks consist of a number of sensor nodes and vehicles
deployed under water. Autonomous underwater vehicles are
used for gathering data from these sensor nodes. A
challenge of underwater communication is a long
propagation delay, and bandwidth and sensor failures.
Multimedia WSNs
Muttimedia wireless sensor networks have been proposed to
enable tracking and monitoring of events in the form of
multimedia, such as imaging, video, and audio. These
networks consist of low-cost sensor nodes equipped with
microphones and cameras.These nodes are interconnected
with each other over a wireless connection for data
compression, data retrieval and correlation.
Mobile WSNs
These networks consist of a collection of sensor nodes that
can be moved on their own and can be interacted with the
physical environment. The mobile nodes have the ability to
compute sense and communicate.
The mobile wireless sensor networks are much more
versatile than the static sensor networks. The advantages
of MWSN over the static wireless sensor networks include
better and improved coverage, better energy efficiency,
superior channel capacity.
Limitations of Wireless Sensor Networks
•Possess very little storage capacity – a few hundred
kilobytes
•Possess modest processing power-8MHz
•Works in short communication range – consumes a lot of
power
•Requires minimal energy
•Have batteries with a finite life time
•Passive devices provide little energy
Design Issues in WSN
•Wireless sensor networks are made of large number of tiny
sensor nodes, which have limited power and less processing
capability.
•The life time of the individual sensor node is not easily
predictable and also the network needs to be formed
autonomously as it is not possible to manually set up the
sensor network for all applications.
•The sensor network also consists of several different kind of
nodes hence heterogeneity needs to be supported.
•The number of sensor nodes in the network is not constant
through out the life time of the network it may vary because of
addition of sensor nodes or reduction of nodes due to their
death
Fault Tolerance: Possibility of node failure and change of
topology of network is quite high in case of WSN. Hence the
designer of network should make the network robust and
reliable even in case of node failures and topology changes.
The network should function smoothly and normally
irrespective of node failures and topology changes.

Life Time: WSN are supposed to work for a quite long time
with low power consumption. They are supposed to last at-
least for 6 months to 1 year. We need to keep in mind that
every node in WSN may be powered using just a 3 V battery
and this should be sufficient for the entire life time of the
node . The design of protocols of WSN should be such that
the node consumes as less energy as possible. This will
help in making the WSN last longer.
Scalability: The design of WSN should support addition of
new nodes any time and also the design should support
large number of nodes because some applications in WSN
may require quite a huge number of sensor nodes.

Date Aggregation: The sensor nodes in WSN are located

close to each other hence the possibility of similar data
being generated by the nodes next to each other is quite
high. So the data needs to be aggregated and the duplicate
data needs to be avoided because the transmission and
reception data is the most costly affair in WSN.The data
needs to be aggregated at different levels in WSN so that
only the necessary data is transmitted and recevied and the
redundant data is not communicated.
Cost: The cost of each sensor node is supposed to be 1$ , as
WSN can have large number of sensor nodes the total cost of
the network can become a quite expensive affair. So the
designer of WSN needs to decide on the optimal number of
nodes necessary for the application.

Environment: The environment in which the WSN is

deployed can be very demanding , so the design of WSN
should be such that WSN should be able to survive regardless
of the conditions in which WSN s deployed.

Heterogeneity Support: The protocols designed for WSN

should support different kinds of sensor nodes and also be
able to support variety of applications.
Autonomous Operations: The WSN should be able to
organize , reorganize and operate autonomously
because sometimes WSN deployed in places where
human habitation is not possible.

Limited Memory and Processing Capability : The

sensor nodes have very limited memory, power and
processing capabilities , so all designs of WSN should
not be demanding in terms of processing requirements
or memory requirements .