Wireless Sensor Networks

An Introduction
 Infrastructure-based wireless networks
• Typical wireless network: Based on infrastructure
• E.g., Cellular Network
• Base stations connected to a wired backbone network
• Mobile entities communicate wirelessly to these base stations
• Traffic between different mobile entities is relayed by base stations and wired
backbone
• Backbone infrastructure required for administrative tasks

• Limitations:
• No infrastructure available? – E.g., in disaster areas
• Too expensive/inconvenient to set up? – E.g., in remote, large construction sites
• No time to set it up? – E.g., in military operations
 Solution: (Wireless) ad hoc networks
Infrastructure free network
• Try to construct a network without infrastructure, using networking abilities of the
participants
• This is an ad hoc network – a network constructed “for a special purpose”

• Simplest example: Laptops in a conference room –

a single-hop ad hoc network

• Network Games
• Wifi Hotspot
• Personal area networking (watch, glasses, PDA, medical appliance, …)
• Vehicle to vehicle communication
 Wireless Sensor Networks
• Participants in the previous examples were devices close to a human
user, interacting with humans.

• Alternative concept:
Instead of focusing interaction on humans, focus on interacting with
environment:
• Network is embedded in environment
• Nodes in the network are equipped with sensing and actuation to
measure/influence environment
• Nodes process information and communicate it wirelessly

Wireless sensor networks (WSN)

• Or: Wireless sensor & actuator networks (WSAN)
 Motivation
• Research on WSN dates back to the early 1980s when the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) carried out the distributed sensor networks (DSNs) programme for the US military.
• The development of WSN was inspired by military applications, notably surveillance in conflict zones. During
the Cold War, the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), a system of acoustic sensors (hydrophones) on the
ocean bottom, was deployed at strategic locations to detect and track quiet Soviet submarines.
• SOSUS is now used by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for monitoring
events in the ocean, e.g., seismic and animal activity.
• DARPA acted as a pioneer in the new wave of sensor network research (around 1998) by launching an
initiative research programme called SensIT which provided the present sensor networks with new capabilities
such as ad hoc networking, dynamic querying and tasking, reprogramming and multi-tasking. Currently, WSN
have been viewed as one of the most important technologies for the 21st century.
• Sensor nodes have been much smaller in size (i.e. from that of a pack of cards to dust particle) and much
cheaper in price, and thus many new civilian applications of sensor networks such as environment monitoring,
vehicular sensor network and body sensor networks have emerged.
 Wireless Sensor Networks
• WSN is a network with little or no infrastructure,
consisting of a large number of tiny sensor nodes
with limited energy, communication and
computational capability.
• Used to sense environmental conditions like
temperature, pressure, sound, humidity, and based
on local decisions forward this sensed data to the
sink
• The ever-increasing capabilities of these tiny sensor
nodes, which include sensing, data processing, and
communicating, enable the realization of WSN
based on the collaborative effort of a large number
of sensor nodes.
Source: Akyildiz et al., “Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey”, Computer
Networks (Elsevier) Journal, March 2002.
 Sensing
• A technique to gather information about physical entities.
• A sensor is a device that translates parameters or events from physical
world into signals that can be measured and analyzed.
• Human body is equipped with sensors like eyes, ears, nose.
• A wide variety of sensor nodes/motes have been developed in recent
years like Mica2, Cricket, MicaZ, Telos, SunSPOT, Imote2, Dust
Motes, Dot Motes etc.
 Characteristics of WSN
• Low cost, size, and weight per node - Prone to failures
• More use of broadcast communications instead of point-to-point
• Multi hop wireless communication
• Energy efficient operation
• Nodes do not have a global ID – data centric networks
• Self configuration
• Collaboration and in-network processing
• The security, both on physical and communication level, is more
limited than in classical wireless networks
Differences between sensor networks and ad hoc networks
• Sensor nodes are densely deployed.
• Sensor nodes are prone to failures.
• Sensor nodes are limited in power, computational capacities, and
memory.
• Topology of a sensor network changes very frequently.
• Sensor nodes mainly use broadcast communication whereas most ad
hoc networks are based on point-to-point communications.
• Sensor nodes may not have global ID like IP addresses.
• Need tight integration with sensing tasks.
 Differences From Traditional Networks
• WSN are application specific
• Energy is the main design challenge; QoS is secondary
• Adhoc deployment
• Operate in harsh and/or inaccessible environments
• Mostly works in a decentralized manner
Applications of WSN
 Node Architecture
• A wireless sensor device is generally composed of four basic components: a
sensing unit, a processing unit, a transceiver unit and a power unit.
• Additional components can also be integrated into the sensor node depending
on the application.
 Operational Stages of Transceiver
• Transmit: node is transmitting a frame

• Receive: node is receiving a frame

• Idle: even when no messages are being transmitted over the medium,
the node stays idle and listening the medium with some power.

• Sleep: radio is turned off and the node is not capable to detect signals.
• Recovery time and startup energy to leave sleep state can be significant.
• Only when node uses IEEE 802.15.4 or S-MAC as MAC protocols
• Duty cycle
• Wakeup strategies – synchronous or asynchronous
Network Architecture
 Communication in WSN
Characteristics of typical WSN:
• Low data rates
• Energy constrained sensors

IEEE 802.11 standards

• Most widely used WLAN protocols for wireless communications
• Found in sensor networks without stringent energy constraints

IEEE 802.15.4 is an example for a protocol suite that has been designed
specifically for short-range communications in WSNs
• low data rates
• low power consumption
• widely used in academic and commercial WSN solutions
 Single hop vs Multi hop
Single Hop: Multi Hop:
• every sensor communicates directly • sensors serve as relays (forwarders) for other sensor
(single-hop) with the base station nodes (multi-hop)
• may require large transmit powers • may reduce power consumption and allows for larger
• may be infeasible in large geographic coverage
areas • introduces the problem of routing
• can form star topology • can form mesh topology
 Basic scenarios: WSN
• Sensor network scenarios
• Sources: Any entity that provides data/measurements
• Sinks: Nodes where information is required
• Belongs to the sensor network as such
• Is an external entity, e.g., a PDA, but directly connected to the WSN
• Main difference: comes and goes, often moves around, …
• Is part of an external network (e.g., internet), somehow connected
to the WSN
Interaction patterns between sources and sinks show some typical patterns.
• Event detection:
• Sensor nodes should report to the sink(s) once they have detected the occurrence of a
specified event.
• If several different events can occur, event classification might be an additional issue.
• Periodic measurements (Demand Driven):
• Sensors can be tasked with periodically reporting measured values.
• Tracking:
• The source of an event can be mobile (e.g. an intruder in surveillance scenarios).
• Typically sensor nodes have to cooperate before updates can be reported to the sink.
 Different sources of mobility
• Node mobility
• A node participating as source/sink (or destination) or a relay node might
move around
• Deliberately, self-propelled or by external force; targeted or at random
• Sink mobility
• In WSN, a sink that is not part of the WSN might move
• Mobile requester
• Event mobility
• In WSN, event that is to be observed moves around (or extends, shrinks)
• Different WSN nodes become “responsible” for surveillance of such an event
 Factors influencing WSN design
• Fault Tolerance (reliability)
• Scalability
• Production Costs
• Sensor Network Topology
• Operating Environment
• Transmission Media
• Hardware Constraints
• Power Consumption (lifetime)
 Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
• Ability to sustain sensor network functionalities without any
interruption due to sensor node failures.
• Sensor nodes may fail or be blocked due to lack of power, have
physical damage or environmental interference. The failure of sensor
nodes should not affect the overall task of the sensor network.
• Fault Tolerance (Reliability) depends heavily on applications.
 Scalability
• The density of sensor nodes can range from few to several hundreds in a
region which can be less than 10m in diameter

• Node Density: Number of expected nodes per unit area:

= ⁄
where, N is the number of scattered sensor nodes in region of area A

• Node Degree: Number of expected nodes in the transmission range of a node

(number of sensor nodes within transmission radius R of each sensor node in
region of area A)
( )= . .
 Environment
• Sensor nodes are densely deployed either very close or directly inside the
phenomenon to be observed; usually work unattended in remote geographic
areas.
• They may be working:
• in busy intersections,
• in the interior of a large machinery,
• at the bottom of an ocean,
• on the surface of an ocean during a tornado,
• in a biologically or chemically contaminated field,
• in a battlefield beyond the enemy lines,
• in a home or a large building,
• in a large warehouse,
• attached to animals,
• attached to fast moving vehicles, and
• in a drain or river moving with current.
 Production Costs
• Since the sensor networks consist of a large number of sensor nodes, cost
of a single node is very important to justify the overall cost of the
networks.
• If the cost of the network is more expensive than deploying traditional
sensors, then the sensor network is not cost-justified.
 Sensor Network Topology / Self Management
• Random deployment:
• many sensor networks are deployed “without design”
• sensors dropped from airplanes (battlefield assessment)
• sensors placed wherever currently needed (tracking patients in disaster zone)
• moving sensors (robot teams exploring unknown terrain)

• Unattended operation:
• once deployed, WSN must operate without human intervention
• device adapts to changes in topology, density, and traffic load
• device adapts in response to failures

• Sensor node must have some or all of the following abilities:

• determine its location
• determine identity of neighbouring nodes
• configure node parameters
• discover route(s) to base station
• initiate sensing responsibility
• Pre-deployment and deployment phase
• Post deployment phase
• Re-deployment phase

• self-organization: ability to adapt configuration parameters based on system

and environmental state.
• self-optimization: ability to monitor and optimize the use of the limited system
resources.
• self-protection: ability recognize and protect from intrusions and attacks.
• self-healing: ability to discover, identify, and react to network disruptions.
 Transmission Media
• Radio, Infrared, Optical, Acoustic, Microwave

• ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) – license free frequency bands

• Free radio, huge spectrum allocation and global availability
• Not bound to any particular standard, thus provide freedom in implementing power
saving strategies
• Unusual application requirements make the choice of transmission media more
challenging
 Power Consumption
• Sensor node has limited power source
• Sensor node LIFETIME depends on BATTERY lifetime
• Goal: Provide as much energy as possible at smallest
cost/volume/weight/recharge
• Recharging may or may not be an option
• Options
• Primary batteries – not rechargeable
• Secondary batteries – rechargeable, only makes sense in combination
with some form of energy harvesting
• Power consumption in WSN can be divided into three domains
• Sensing – continuous or periodic
• Data Processing (Computation)
• Communication
 Decentralization
• Centralized management (e.g., at the base station) of the network often not
feasible to due large scale of network and energy constraints.
• Decentralized (or distributed) solutions often preferred, though they may perform
worse than their centralized counterparts.
• Example: routing
• Centralized:
• BS informs all sensor nodes of routes
• can be expensive, especially when the topology changes frequently
• Decentralized:
• each sensors makes routing decisions based on limited local information
• routes may not be optimal, but route establishment/management can be
much cheaper
 Security
• Sensor networks often monitor critical infrastructure or carry sensitive
information, making them desirable targets for attacks
• Attacks may be facilitated by:
• remote and unattended operation
• wireless communication
• lack of advanced security features due to cost, form factor, or energy
• Conventional security techniques often not feasible due to their
computational, communication, and storage requirements
 WSN Protocol Stack
• The protocol stack used by sink and all

Task Management Plane

Mobility Management Plane
sensor nodes

Power Management Plane

• Combines power and routing Application Layer
awareness, integrates data with
networking protocols, communicates Transport Layer
power efficiently through the wireless
medium, and promotes cooperative
efforts of sensor nodes. Network Layer
• Consists of application layer, transport
layer, network layer, data link layer, Data Link Layer
physical layer, power management
plane, mobility management plane, Physical Layer
and task management plane.
 References and Reading Materials
• I. F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E. Cayirci. Wireless sensor networks: a survey. Computer
Networks, 38(4):393–422, March 2002. [ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.5.2442 ]
• J. Yick, B. Mukherjee, and D. Ghosal. Wireless sensor network survey. Computer Networks, 52(12):2292–
2330, August 2008. [ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389128608001254 ]
• Holger Karl & Andreas Willig, Protocols and Architectures for Wireless Sensor Networks, John Wiley, 2005.