Study of Wireless Sensor Network for IoT

Application
Snehal R. Thakur, Nidhi Solanki, Dr. P. H. Zope
PG Students,Assistant Professor
Dept. of E&TC, SSBTs College of Engineering and Technology, Jalgaon, MS, India
snehalthakur.2013@rediffmail.com , phzope@gmail.com

Abstract: node is connected to one or sometimes several sensors

if required. A sensor node typically consists of several
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been widely
parts i.e. radio transceiver with an internal antenna, a
considered as one of the most important technologies for the
microcontroller used to interface with the sensors and
twenty - first century. Enabled by recent advances in
microelectronic mechanical systems (MEMS) and wireless an energy source usually a battery. The size of a sensor
communication technologies, tiny, cheap, and smart sensors node can be either small or large. The cost of sensor
deployed in a physical area and networked through wireless nodes can also range from hundreds to thousands
links and the Internet provide unprecedented opportunities dollars. WSN consists of a base station also called sink
for a variety of civilian and military applications, for example, that communicates with sensor nodes.
environmental monitoring, battle field surveillance, and
industry process control. Distinguished from traditional
wireless communication networks, for example, cellular
systems and mobile ad hoc networks (MANET), WSNs have
unique characteristics, for example, denser level of node
deployment, higher unreliability of sensor nodes, and severe
energy, computation, and storage constraints, which present
many new challenges in the development and IoT application
of WSNs. The common vision of such systems is usually
associated with one single concept, the internet of things (IoT),
where through the use of sensors, the entire physical
infrastructure is closely coupled with information and
communication technologies; where intelligent monitoring
and management can be achieved via the usage of networked
embedded devices. In the past decade, WSNs have received Fig. 1: DOT Wireless sensor network device designed to be the
tremendous attention from both academia and industry all approximate size of a quarter. Future devices will continue to be smaller,
over the world. A large amount of research activities have cheaper and longer lasting.
been carried out to explore and solve various design and
The most straightforward application of wireless sensor
application issues, and significant advances have been made in
the development and deployment of WSNs. It is envisioned network technology is to monitor remote environments for
that in the near future WSNs will be widely used in various low frequency data trends. For example, a chemical plant
civilian and military fields, and revolutionize the way we live, could be easily monitored for leaks by hundreds of sensors
work, and interact with the physical world. that automatically form a wireless interconnection network
and immediately report the detection of any chemical leaks.
Keyword: WSNs, Sensor Networks, LEACH (Low Energy Unlike traditional wired systems, deployment costs would
Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy), Design Issues, Routing be minimal. Instead of having to deploy thousands of feet
Protocols, Applications. of wire routed through protective conduit, installers simply
have to place quarter-sized device, such as the one pictured
I. Introduction
in Fig 1, at each sensing point. The network could be
Wireless sensor network is a wireless network incrementally extended by simply adding more devices
comprises of spatially independent distributed devices no rework or complex configuration. With the devices
using sensors in attempt to monitor physical and presented in this thesis, the system would be capable of
environmental conditions. WSN is built of several monitoring for anomalies for several years on a single set
nodes from few to hundreds or even thousands and of batteries.
These large number of nodes wirelessly communicate with
each other and to the base station directly or indirectly, and
have capabilities to sense the data from their surroundings,
store the data , pass their sensed data to their neighbour
sensor nodes or to the base station and perform some
computations on the sensed data. There are wide
applications of WSN include: physical security, air traffic
control, environment monitoring, healthcare monitoring,
military and so on. Sensor networks may be quite different
for various applications. With the rapid technological
development of sensors, WSNs will become the key
technology for IoT.
II. Design issues of a wireless sensor network
There are a lot of challenges placed by the deployment of
sensor networks which are a superset of those found in
wireless ad hoc networks. Sensor nodes communicate over
wireless, lossy lines with no infrastructure. An additional
challenge is related to the limited, usually non-renewable
energy supply of the sensor nodes. In order to maximize the
lifetime of the network, the protocols need to be designed
from the beginning with the objective of efficient
management of the energy resources (Akyildiz et al.,
2002). Wireless Sensor Network Design issues are
mentioned in (Akkaya et al., 2005), (Akyildizet al., 2002),
(SensorSim; Tossim, Younis et al., 2004), (Pan et al., 2003)
and different possible platforms for simulation and testing
of routing protocols for WSNs are discussed in ( NS-2,
Zeng et al., 1998, SensorSim, Tossiim ).
Let us now discuss the individual design issues in greater
detail.
Fault Tolerance: Sensor nodes are vulnerable and
frequently deployed in dangerous environment. Nodes can
fail due to hardware problems or physical damage or by
exhausting their energy supply. We expect the node failures
to be much higher than the one normally considered in
wired or infrastructure-based wireless networks. The
protocols deployed in a sensor network should be able to
detect these failures as soon as possible and be robust
enough to handle a relatively large number of failures while
maintaining the overall functionality of the network. This is
especially relevant to the routing protocol design, which
has to ensure that alternate paths are available for rerouting
of the packets. Different deployment environments pose
different fault tolerance requirements.
Scalability: Sensor networks vary in scale from several
nodes to potentially several hundred thousand. In addition,
the deployment density is also variable. For collecting high
resolution data, the node density might reach the level
where a node has several thousand neighbors in their
transmission range. The protocols deployed in sensor
networks need to be scalable to these levels and be able to
maintain adequate performance.
Production Costs: Because many deployment models
consider the sensor nodes to be disposable devices, sensor
networks can compete with traditional information
gathering approaches only if the individual sensor nodes
can be produced very cheaply. The target price envisioned
for a sensor node should ideally be less than $1.
Hardware Constraints: At minimum, every sensor node
needs to have a sensing unit, a processing unit, a
transmission unit, and a power supply. Optionally, the
nodes may have several built-in sensors or additional
devices such as a localization system to enable location-
aware routing. However, every additional functionality
comes with additional cost and increases the power
consumption and physical size of the node. Thus,
additional functionality needs to be always balanced
against cost and low-power requirements.
Sensor Network Topology: Although WSNs have evolved
in many aspects, they continue to be networks with
constrained resources in terms of energy, computing power,
memory, and communications capabilities. Of these
constraints, energy consumption is of paramount
importance, which is demonstrated by the large number of
algorithms, techniques, and protocols that have been
developed to save energy, and thereby extend the lifetime
of the network. Topology Maintenance is one of the most
important issues researched to reduce energy consumption
in wireless sensor networks.
Transmission Media: The communication between the
nodes is normally implemented using radio communication
over the popular ISM bands. However, some sensor
networks use optical or infrared communication, with the
latter having the advantage of being robust and virtually
interference free.
Power Consumption: As we have already seen, many of the
challenges of sensor networks revolve around the limited
power resources. The size of the nodes limits the size of the
battery. The software and hardware design needs to
carefully consider the issues of efficient energy use. For
instance, data compression might reduce the amount of
energy used for radio transmission, but uses additional
energy for computation and/or filtering. The energy policy
also depends on the application; in some applications, it
might be acceptable to turn off a subset of nodes in order to
conserve energy while other applications require all nodes
operating simultaneously.

III. Structure of a wireless sensor node

A sensor node is made up of four basic components such as

sensing unit, processing unit, transceiver unit and a power
unit which is shown in Fig. 2. It also has application
dependent additional components such as a location finding
system, a power generator and a mobilizer. Sensing units
are usually composed of two subunits: sensors and
analogue to digital converters (ADCs) (Akyildiz et al., Figure 2. The components of a sensor node
2002). The analogue signals produced by the sensors are
converted to digital signals by the ADC, and then fed into Using flash memory, the remote nodes acquire data on
the processing unit. command from a base station, or by an event sensed by one
or more inputs to the node. Moreover, the embedded
The processing unit is generally associated with a small firmware can be upgraded through the wireless network in
storage unit and it can manage the procedures that make the the field.
sensor node collaborate with the other nodes to carry out
the assigned sensing tasks. A transceiver unit connects the
node to the network. One of the most important
components of a sensor node is the power unit. Power units
can be supported by a power scavenging unit such as solar
cells. The other subunits, of the node are application
dependent.

A functional block diagram of a versatile wireless sensing

node is provided in Fig. 3.

Modular design approach provides a flexible and versatile

platform to address the needs of a wide variety of
applications. For example, depending on the sensors to be
deployed, the signal conditioning block can be re- Figure 3. Functional block diagram of a sensor node
programmed or replaced. This allows for a wide variety 10
The microprocessor has a number of functions including:
Wireless Sensor Networks Technology and Protocols
Managing data collection from the sensors
of different sensors to be used with the wireless sensing
performing power management functions
node. Similarly, the radio link may be swapped out as
interfacing the sensor data to the physical radio layer
required for a given applications wireless range
managing the radio network protocol
requirement and the need for bidirectional communications.
A key aspect of any wireless sensing node is to minimize
the power consumed by the system. Usually, the radio
subsystem requires the largest amount of power. Therefore,
data is sent over the radio network only when it is required.
An algorithm is to be loaded into the node to determine
when to send data based on the sensed event. Furthermore,
it is important to minimize the power consumed by the
sensor itself. Therefore, the hardware should be designed to
allow the microprocessor to judiciously control power to
the radio, sensor, and sensor signal conditioner (Akyildiz et
al., 2002).
III. Sensor Network Architecture
Most common architecture for WSN follows the OSI
Model. Basically in sensor network we need five layers:
application layer, transport layer, network layer, data link
layer and physical layer. Added to the five layers are the
three cross layers planes as shown in Fig.4
Fig 4: WSN Architecture
A. Transport layer:
The function of this layer is to provide reliability and
congestion avoidance where a lot of protocols designed to
provide this function are either applied on the upstream
(user to sink, ex: ESRT, STCP and DSTN), or downstream
(sink to user, ex: PSFQ and GARUDA). These protocols
use different mechanisms for loss detection ((ACK, NACK,
and Sequence number)) and loss recovery ((End to End or
Hop by Hop)). This layer is specifically needed when a
system is organised to access other networks. Providing a
reliable hop by hop is more energy efficient than end to end
and that is one of the reason why TCP is not suitable for
WSN. Usually the link from sink to node is considered as
downstream link for multicast transmission and UDP traffic
because of the limited memory and overhead avoiding. On
the other hand from User to sink is considered as upstream
link for mono-cast transmission and TCP or UDP traffic. In
general, Transport protocols can be divided into:
1) Packet driven: all packets sent by source must reach
destination.
2) Event driven: the event must be detected, but it is
enough that one notification message reaches the sink.
B. Network layer:
The major function of this layer is routing. This layer has a
lot of challenges depending on the application but
apparently, the major challenges are in the power saving,
limited memory and buffers, and sensor does not have a
global ID and have to be self-organized. This is unlike
computer networks with IP address and central device for
controlling. The basic idea of the routing protocol is to
define a reliable path and redundant paths according to a
certain scale called metric, which differs from protocol to
protocol. There is a lot of routing protocols available for
this layer, they can be divide into; flat routing (for
example, direct diffusion) and hierarchal routing (for
example, LEACH) or can be divided into time driven,
query driven and event driven. In continuous time driven
protocol, the data is sent periodically and time driven for
applications that need a periodic monitoring. In event
driven and query driven protocols, the sensor responds
according to action or user query.
C.Data link layer:
Responsible for multiplexing data streams, data frame
detection, MAC, and error control, ensure reliability of
pointpoint or point multipoint. Errors or unreliability
comes from:
Co- channel interference at the MAC layer and this
problem is solved by MAC protocols.
Multipath fading and shadowing at the physical layer and
this problem is solved by forward error correction (FEC)
and automatic repeat request (ARQ).
1) ARQ: It is not popular in WSN because of additional re-
transmission cost and overhead. ARQ is not efficient to
frame error detection so all the frame has to retransmit if
there is a single bit error.
2) FEC: It decreases the number of retransmission by
adding redundant data on each message so the receiver can
detect and correct errors. By that we can avoid re-
transmission and wait for ACK.
D. Physical Layer:
It can provide an interface to transmit a stream of bits over
physical medium. Responsible for frequency selection,
carrier frequency generation, signal detection, Modulation
and data encryption. IEEE 802.15.4: proposed as standard
for low rate personal area and WSN with low: cost,
complexity, power consumption, range of communication
to maximize battery life. Use CSMA/CA, support star and
peer to peer topology.
E. Application layer:
Responsible for traffic management and provide software
for different applications that translate the data in an
understandable form or send queries to obtain certain
information. Sensor networks deployed in various
applications in different fields, for example; military,
medical, environment, agriculture fields.
III. Routing Protocols for WSNs
In this context, we introduce the most well-known routing
protocols for wireless sensor networks.
A. Flooding:
Flooding is an old routing mechanism that may also be
used in sensor networks. In ooding, a node sends out the
received data or the management packets to its neighbours
by broadcasting, unless a maximum number of hops for
that packet are reached or the destination of the packets is
arrived. However; there are some deciencies for this
routing technique:
1) Implosion: is the case where a duplicated data or
packets are sent to the same node. Flooding is a function of
the network topology.
2) Overlap: if two sensor nodes cover an overlapping
measuring region, both of them will sense/detect the same
data. As a result, their neighbour nodes will receive
duplicated data or messages. Overlapping is a function of
both the network topology and the mapping of sensed data
to sensor nodes.
3) Resource blindness: In ooding, nodes do not take into
account the amount of energy resource available to them at
a given time. A WSN protocol must be energy resource-
aware and adapts its sensing, communication and
computation to the state of its energy.
B. Gossiping:
Gossiping protocol is an alternative to ooding mechanism.
In Gossiping, nodescanforwardtheincomingdata/packets to
randomlyselected neighbour node. Once a gossiping node
receives the messages, it can forward the data back to that
neighbour or to another one randomly selected neighbour
node. This technique assists in energy conservation by
randomization. Although, gossiping can solve the
implosion problem, it cannot avoid the overlapping
problem. On the other hand; gossiping distribute
information slowly, this means it consumes energy at a
slow rate, but the cost is long-time propagation is needed to
send messages to all sensor nodes.
C. Spin:
SPIN (Sensor Protocols for Information via Negotiation)
isa family ofadaptiveprotocolsforWSNs. Theirdesigngoal is
to avoid the drawbacks of ooding protocols mentioned
above by utilizing data negotiation and resource-adaptive
algorithms. SPINisdesigned based on two basic ideas; to
operate eciently and to conserve energy by sending
metadata (i.e., sending data about sensor data instead of
sending the whole data that sensor nodes already have or
need to obtain), and nodesinanetworkmustbewareofchanges
in their own energy resources and adapt to these changes to
extend the operating lifetime of the system. SPIN has three
types of messages, namely, ADV, REQ, and DATA
respectively:
1) ADV: when a node has data to send, it advertises via
broadcasting this message containing meta-data (i.e.,
descriptor) to all nodes in the network.
2) REQ: an interested node sends this message when it
wishes to receive some data.
3) DATA: Data message contains the actual sensor data
along with meta-data header. SPIN is based on data-centric
routingwherethe ADV messageviabroadcasting for the data
they have and wait for REQ messages from interested sinks
or nodes.
D. Leach:
LEACH (Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy) is a
self-organizing, adaptive clustering-based protocol that
uses randomized rotation of cluster-heads to evenly
distribute the energy load among the sensor nodes in the
network. LEACH based on two basic assumptions:
1) Base station is xed and located far away from the
sensors, and
2) All nodes in the network are homogeneous and energy-
constrained. The idea behind LEACH is to form clusters of
the sensor nodes depending on the received signal strength
and use local cluster heads as routers to route data to the
base station. The key features of LEACH are:
Localized coordination and control for cluster set-up and
operation.
Randomized rotation of the cluster base stations or
cluster heads and the corresponding clusters.
Local compression to reduce global communication.
In LEACH, the operation is separated in to xed-length
rounds, where each round starts with a setup phase
followed by a steady-state phase. The duration of a round is
determined by priority:
1. Advertisement phase
2. Cluster set-up phase
3. Schedule Creation phase
4. Data Transmission phase.
Although, LEACH has shown good features to sensor
networks, it suers from the following drawbacks:
It cannot be applied to time-constrained application as it
results in a long latency.
The nodes on the route a hot spot to the sink could drain
their power fast. This problem known as hotspot
problem.
The number of clusters may not be xed every round.
It cannot be applied to large sensor networks.
IV. Applications of WSNs for IoT
Fig 5: Applications of WSNs for IoT
Sensor networks are applied in a wide range of areas, such
as military applications, public safety, medical,
surveillances, environmental monitoring, commercial
applications, habitat and tracking. In general, sensor
networks will be ubiquitous in the near future, since they
support new opportunities for the interaction between
humans and their physical world. In addition, sensor
networks are expected to contribute signicantly to
pervasive computing and space exploration in the next
decade. Deploying sensor nodes in an unattended
environment will give much more possibilities for the
exploration of new applications in the real world as shown
in fig.5:
V. Conclusion
Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has very specific
characteristics and requirement that are unique. A system
for aiding in the development of sensing agents is often
required. The systems are characterized by their power
consumption, memory consumption, bandwidth
consumption, fault tolerance, adaptability, and scalability.
Furthermore, most of the existing systems incorporate
management functions within application protocols. The
development of general purpose network management
layer protocols is a challenging problem and remains a
largely unexplored area for WSNs. Another significant
open problem is the development of management policies
and expressive languages or metadata for representing
management policies and for representing the information
exchanged between sensor nodes(SNs), managers, and end
users. This dissertation considers the above challenges and
suggests the following solutions.
In this paper, various applications of WSN along with the
knowledge of security issues & attacks of WSN are
discussed. This paper can be helpful for research scholars
who are working in this field. Security is an important
requirement and complicates enough to set up in different
domains of WSN.
Adding security in a resource constrained wireless sensor
network with minimum overhead provides significant
challenges, and is an on-going area of research. There is
currently enormous research potential in the field of WSN.
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