Volume 2, No.

7, July 2011

Journal of Global Research in Computer Science

TECHNICAL NOTE
Available Online at www.jgrcs.info

A SURVEY ON WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORK ARCHITECTURE, PROTOCOLS

AND APPLICATIONS
Dr. M. Lilly Florence*1, D.Swamydoss2
1,2
Adhiyamaan College of Engineering,Hosur, Tamilnadu,India
1
lilly_swamy@yahoo.co.in
2
Swamy_asir@yahoo.co.in

Abstract: In this paper, we survey the current state of the art in wireless sensor network which has been gaining interest platform that changes
how we interact with the physical world. Today, researchers and practitioners utilize low power nodes composed of wireless radios, sensors and
computing elements for a variety of applications in medicine military, biology, manufacturing, etc. Most of wireless sensor networks use off-
the-shelf commodity based microcontrollers, through the energy consumption of these systems can limit the effective lifetimes of the wireless
sensor network nodes. We provide a discussion on the definition of wireless sensor network, design architecture, issues in various protocols and
various applications of wireless sensor network.

Keywords: Wireless Sensor Networks, local storage, alternative routing

WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS (WSN) However, nowadays, the focus is more on wireless,
INTRODUCTION distributed, sensing nodes. But, why distributed, wireless
sensing? When the exact location of a particular
A sensor network is a group of specialized transducers with phenomenon is unknown, distributed sensing allows for
a communications infrastructure intended to monitor and closer placement to the phenomenon than a single sensor
record conditions at diverse locations. Commonly monitored would permit. Also, in many cases, multiple sensor nodes
parameters are temperature, humidity, pressure, wind are required to overcome environmental obstacles like
direction and speed, illumination intensity, vibration obstructions, line of sight constraints etc. In most cases, the
intensity, sound intensity, power-line voltage, chemical environment to be monitored does not have an existing
concentrations, pollutant levels and vital body functions. A infrastructure for either energy or communication. It
sensor network consists of multiple detection stations called becomes imperative for sensor nodes to survive on small,
sensor nodes, each of which is small, lightweight and finite sources of energy and communicate through a wireless
portable. Every sensor node is equipped with a transducer, communication channel. Another requirement for sensor
microcomputer, transceiver and power source. The networks would be distributed processing capability. This is
transducer generates electrical signals based on sensed necessary since communication is a major consumer of
physical effects and phenomena. The microcomputer energy. A centralized system would mean that some of the
processes and stores the sensor output. The transceiver, sensors would need to communicate over long distances that
which can be hard-wired or wireless, receives commands lead to even more energy depletion. Hence, it would be a
from a central computer and transmits data to that computer. good idea to process locally as much information as possible
in order to minimize the total number of bits transmitted.
The power for each sensor node is derived from the electric
utility or from a battery. Recent technological improvements GENERAL DESIGN ARCHITECTURE OF WSN
have made the deployment of small, inexpensive, low-
power, distributed devices, which are capable of local The Framework of Wireless Sensor Network consists of
processing and wireless communication, a reality. Such collection of sensor nodes. Each node can sense, compute
nodes are called as sensor nodes. Each sensor node is and communicate each other. They can either receive
capable of only a limited amount of processing. But when message or transmits message, and can transmit messages to
coordinated with the information from a large number of a gateway via self-configuration and multi-hop routing. The
other nodes, they have the ability to measure a given gateway can use many ways to communicate with remote
physical environment in great detail. Thus, a sensor network network, such as Internet, satellite and mobile
can be described as a collection of sensor nodes which co- communication network (in this system we use Ethernet).
ordinate to perform some specific action. Unlike traditional More than one gateway may be used for large-scale
networks, sensor networks depend on dense deployment and application. Because of its limited communication areas the
co-ordination to carry out their tasks. node must use multi-hop routing to access the nodes out of
communication areas.
Previously, sensor networks consisted of small number of
sensor nodes that were wired to a central processing station.
© JGRCS 2011, All Rights Reserved 149
 M. Lilly Florence et al, Journal of Global Research in Computer Science,2 (7), July 2011,149-152

A functional block diagram of a versatile wireless sensing globally compatible ISM band. Its DDSS radio offers both
node is provided in Fig 1. A modular design approach high speed (250 kbps) and hardware security (AES-128).
provides a flexible and versatile platform to address the The MICAz 51-pin expansion connector supports Analog
needs of a wide variety of applications. For example, Inputs, Digital I/O, I2C, SPI and UART interfaces. These
depending on the sensors to be deployed, the signal interfaces make it easy to connect to a wide variety of
conditioning block can be re-programmed or replaced. This external peripherals, including a variety of sensor, data
allows for a wide variety of different sensors to be used with acquisition boards and gateway.
the wireless sensing node. Similarly, the radio link may be
Microcontroller
swapped out as required for a given applications’ wireless
range requirement and the need for bidirectional We have considered Atmega128L, a High-performance,
communications. The use of flash memory allows the and Low-power AVR 8-bit Microcontroller as our
remote nodes to acquire data on command from a base processor. The ATmega128 provides the following features:
station, or by an event sensed by one or more inputs to the 32 general purpose working registers connected to ALU
node. Furthermore, the embedded firmware can be upgraded directly, On-chip 2-cycle Multiplier, 128K bytes of In-
through the wireless network in the field. System Programmable Flash 1196 with Read-While-Write
The microprocessor has a number of functions including: capabilities, 4K bytes EEPROM, 4K bytes SRAM, 2
managing data collection from the sensors USARTs, an SPI serial port linked to CC2420, a byte
performing power management functions oriented Two-wire Serial Interface, an 8-channel, 10-bit
interfacing the sensor data to the physical radio layer ADC with optional differential input stage with
programmable gain, and it design six sleep modes,
managing the radio network protocol
especially for the restriction of power.
A key feature of any wireless sensing node is to
minimize the power consumed by the system. Generally, the RF Transceiver
radio subsystem requires the largest amount of power. The CC2420 is the industry’s first single-chip 2.4 GHz
Therefore, it is advantageous to send data over the radio RF transceiver compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard
network only when required. This sensor event-driven data and already to be used in ZigBee products. In a typical
collection model requires an algorithm to be loaded into the application, CC2420 will be used together with a
node to determine when to send data based on the sensed microcontroller and a few external passive components.
event. Additionally, it is important to minimize the power CC2420 set its work modes by SPI(SI฀SO฀SCLK฀CSn)
consumed by the sensor itself. Therefore, the hardware and achieve its read-while-write operation. The sketch of
should be designed to allow the microprocessor to link between CC2420 and microcontroller is shown in Fig 3.
judiciously control power to the radio, sensor, and sensor
signal conditioner. Gateway
MIB600CA which is one of MICAz mote developer’s
kits is adopted as a gateway for TCP/IP-based Ethernet.
MIB600CA is used as a bridge to link the wired and
wireless network. It connects the MICAz to Ethernet and
permit server access data from wireless sensor network by
TCP/IP-based Ethernet.

Figure. 1 Wireless Sensor node functional block diagram

Hardware of Wireless Node Figure. 2. Hardware Framework of MICAz

The wireless sensor network nodes use battery power
and their power capabilities are limited due to its small size
of node. The transmission rate of the network is low and it
needs enough power to work steadily for a long time.
Therefore low-power design is significant. The system
adopts MICAz mote module produced by Crossbow
Technology and its sketch of hardware is shown in Fig 2.
MICAZ is embedded with a ZigBee compliant RF
transceiver and it works between 2.4 and 2.4835 GHz, a
© JGRCS 2011, All Rights Reserved 150
 M. Lilly Florence et al, Journal of Global Research in Computer Science,2 (7), July 2011,149-152

One example for such a name would be RSSI: the

physical layer could publish this information, and any layer
that is interested in it could subscribe to it. One practical
implementation concept for such a publish/subscribe
structure is a “blackboard”, where each building block can
“write down” values for a given name and where a building
block can post a callback for a given name to be invoked
when a value for this name is initialized or changes.

APPLICATIONS OF WSN

Structural Health Monitoring – Smart Structures

Sensors embedded into machines and structures enable
condition-based maintenance of these assets. Typically,
structures or machines are inspected at regular time
Figure 3. Link between CC2420 and Micro controller. intervals, and components may be repaired or replaced
based on their hours in service, rather than on their working
PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE SCHEME FOR WSN
conditions. This method is expensive if the components are
One reason that makes the implementation of wireless in good working order, and in some cases, scheduled
networks in general and wireless sensor networks in maintenance will not protect the asset if it was damaged in
particular so challenging is the need to exchange between the inspection intervals. Wireless sensing will
information between functionalities that belonged, in the allow assets to be inspected when the sensors indicate that
traditional ISO/OSI model, to different protocol layers. A there may be a problem, reducing the cost of maintenance
simple example is link-layer triggering for handover in and preventing catastrophic failure in the event that damage
cellular networks, transmission power- aware routing is detected. Additionally, the use of wireless reduces the
protocols in ad hoc networks, and the multitude of mutual initial deployment costs, as the cost of installing long cable
influences of protocol functionalities in wireless sensor runs is often prohibitive. In some cases, wireless sensing
networks. In such a situation, the reuse of communication applications demand the elimination of not only lead wires,
protocols, especially from a third party, is challenging. but the elimination of batteries as well, due to the inherent
Ideally, individual “building blocks” for wireless sensor nature of the machine, structure, or materials under test.
network protocols should be identified and implemented These applications include sensors mounted on continuously
separately, with different ideas for the mechanisms realizing rotating parts, within concrete and composite materials, and
the desired functionalities. These building blocks would within medical implants.
pass packets between each other, but also exchange meta- Industrial Automation
information, e.g., concerning the topology of the network or In addition to being expensive, lead wires can be
about the geographic position of individual nodes. In this constraining, especially when moving parts are involved.
sense, there will be building blocks that are predominantly The use of wireless sensors allows for rapid installation of
engaged in packet exchange (e.g., a link layer building sensing equipment and allows access to locations that would
block) while others will be mostly tasked with the collection not be practical if cables were attached. In this application,
and computation of Meta information (e.g. building block typically ten or more sensors are used to measure gaps
that provides estimates about a sensor node’s position). where rubber seals are to be placed. Previously, the use of
When trying to structure a WSN protocol suite along wired sensors was too cumbersome to be implemented in a
these lines, identifying the most relevant building blocks and production line environment. The use of wireless sensors in
their most important packet passing and information this application is enabling, allowing a measurement to be
exchange relationships, a structure like the one in Fig 1 is a made that was not previously practical. Other applications
possible outcome (depicting an intermediate state of the include energy control systems, security, wind turbine health
EYES project’s architecture discussion). This approach monitoring, environmental monitoring, location-based
results in two challenges: How to organize the passing of a services for logistics, and health care.
packet to the correct next building block; the second
challenge is how to then organize the information exchange Civil Structure Monitoring
between building blocks. The first challenge is akin to the One of the most recent applications of today’s smarter,
same problem in conventional protocol stacks with well- energy-aware sensor networks is structural health
known solutions like packet filters which should also be monitoring of large civil structures, such as the Ben Franklin
applicable here. The second one is more difficult since it is Bridge, which spans the Delaware River, linking
neither clear when information is required from another Philadelphia and Camden, N.J. The bridge carries
building block nor to whom to deliver information. As an automobile, train and pedestrian traffic. Bridge officials
example, a building block for location estimates might be wanted to monitor the strains on the structure as high-speed
used by additional building blocks even after this block has commuter trains crossed over the bridge.
been completed. Hence, a separation of communication in A star network of ten strain sensors were deployed on the
time and space is required—the publish/subscribe model is tracks of the commuter rail train. The wireless sensing nodes
doing exactly this. Providers of information publish it under were packaged in environmentally sealed NEMA rated
a given “name”, users of information can subscribe to such enclosures. The strain gauges were also suitably sealed from
names and be informed of any value changes. the environment and were spot welded to the surface of the
© JGRCS 2011, All Rights Reserved 151
 M. Lilly Florence et al, Journal of Global Research in Computer Science,2 (7), July 2011,149-152

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