Wireless Sensor Networks

D/A
A/D
Microcontroller

External Memory

A very low cost low power computer

Monitors one or more sensors
A Radio Link to the outside world
Are the building blocks of Wireless
Sensor Networks (WSN)

Digital I/O ports

Radio Transceiver

Analog I/O Ports

Mote
Sensor

Sensor

Wireless Sensor Network

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is
a wireless network consisting of
spatially distributed autonomous
devices using sensors to cooperatively
monitor physical or environmental
conditions, such as temperature,
sound, vibration, pressure, motion or
pollutants, at different locations.
- Wikipedia

Wireless Sensor Networks

Formed by hundreds or thousands of motes that
communicate with each other and pass data along
from one to another
Research done in this area focus mostly on energy
aware computing and distributed computing

WSN Applications
Environmental/Habitat monitoring
Acoustic detection
Seismic Detection
Military surveillance
Inventory tracking
Medical monitoring
Smart spaces
Process Monitoring

WSN vs Ad-Hoc
Wire Sensor Network

Ad-Hoc Networks

Large number of nodes

Lesser number of nodes in

comparison with WSN

Nodes are more prone to failure and

energy drain, batteries are not
replaceable or rechargeable

Power source can be replaced or

recharged

Sensor nodes may not have unique

global identifiers

Unique addressing is possible

Data Centric and do not have

unique global identifiers

Address Centric and have unique

addresses

Data fusion to reduce BW

No data fusion

Routing protocols in ad-hoc cannot be directly ported to sensor networks due to

limitation in memory, power, and processing capabilities in the sensor nodes and
the non scalable nature of the protocols.

Issues and Challenges

Nodes are randomly deployed and no regular topology, so
setup and maintenance should be autonomous.
Network is infrastructure less so all routing and routing
algorithms must be distributed.
Energy constraint is there so power efficient protocols are
needed.
Hardware design of sensor nodes should be energy efficient.
Sensor nodes must be synchronized with each other in
distributed manner so that TDMA schedules can be imposed.
Sensor networks must be adaptive to changing connectivity due
to failure of nodes and powering-up of new nodes.
Routing protocols must be dynamic.
Communication security must be there.

Classification of Sensor
Network Protocols

Sensor Network Architecture

Layered Architecture:
Single powerful base station(BS) and layers of
sensor nodes around it.
Nodes of each layer have the same hop count to
BS.
Used with in-building wireless backbone and
military such as Multi-hop Infrastructure Network
Architecture (MINA).
In the in-building scenario BS acts as an access
point to a wired network.
Advantage is that each node is involved only in
short distance, low power transmissions to nodes of
neighboring nodes.

Layered Architecture

Unified Network Protocol

Framework (UNPF)

UNPF: Set of protocols for complete

implementation of layered architecture.
which includes
Network initialization and
Maintenance Protocol
MAC Protocol
Routing Protocol

Network initialization and Maintenance

Protocol
Uses broadcast capability of BS.
BS broadcasts its identifier (ID) using CDMA code.
Nodes after hearing this record the BS ID and send a beacon
signal with their own IDs and low default power levels.
The nodes BS can hear form Layer-1 as they are a single hop
away.
BS again broadcasts a control packet with all Layer-1 node
IDs.
All nodes send a beacon signal again.
Layer-1 nodes record the IDs which they hear and these form
Layer-2 as they are one hop away from layer-1 nodes.
In the next round Layer-1 nodes inform about the Layer-2
nodes to the BS.
So layers are built with successive round of beacons.

MAC Protocol
During data transmission phase Distributed TDMA Receiver
Oriented Channel assignment (DTROC) MAC protocol is
used.
Two steps of DTROC are:
Channel Allocation (assignment of channels)
Channel Scheduling (sharing of the channel by
neighbors)
BS assigns a reception channel for each node with channel
reuse.
Nodes schedule transmission slots for all the neighbors and
broadcast the schedule.
It enables collision free transmission and saves energy
Nodes can turn off when they are not in send/receive
operation.

Routing Protocol
Downlink from BS is by direct broadcast on the
control channel.
With the layered architecture nodes forward the data
to BS through multiple hops.
The node to which a packet is to be forwarded is
selected as per the remaining energy

Clustered Architecture
The Sensor nodes are organized into clusters each
governed by a cluster-head
Each node provide information to their cluster-head
and these heads send messages to the BS (BS
connected to a wired network)
Cluster architecture is useful for the sensor networks
because of its inherent suitability for data fusion.
The data gathering by all the members of the cluster
can be fused at cluster-head, and only the resulting
information needs to be communicated to the BS

LEACH (Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy)

Protocol governs the formation of cluster-head and
entire working of cluster architecture.

LEACH (Low-Energy
Adaptive Clustering
Hierarchy) Protocol

LEACH is a clustering-based protocol that minimizes energy

dissipation in sensor networks.
It randomly selects cluster-heads and performs periodic reelection, so that the high energy dissipation experienced by
cluster-head in communicating with BS is spread across all
the nodes of the network.
Two Phases: (1) Set-Up and (2) Steady
In set-up phase, each sensor node chooses a random
number between 0 & 1, if this is lower than threshold for a
node, the sensor nodes become the cluster-head.
Each node then chooses their cluster-heads on the basis of
signal strength received from them.
In steady state, data fusion takes place at cluster head and
then forwarded to the BS.

Data Dissemination
The process by which queries or data are routed in the sensor
network i.e, to the BS or to the other nodes.
Source: A node that generates data.
Event: The information to be reported.
Sink: A node which is interested in an event and seeks
information.
Data dissemination is done by Dissemination Models which
may be periodic or on-demand.
Data Diffusion: Consists of Interest Propagation and Data
Propagation.
Interest Propagation: particular kind of data or event that a
node is interested such as temp, intrusion or presence of Bio
agents.
Data propagation: Shortest path and strongest path is selected.

Flooding
Each node which receives a packet broadcasts it if the
maximum hop count of the packet is not reached or the node
itself is not the destination.
Disadvantages of Flooding:
Implosion (duplicate messages are sent to same
node)
Overlap (same event sensed by more node due
to overlapping of coverage regions)
Resource blindness (Flooding protocol doesnt
consider the available energy at the nodes and
result in many redundant transmission)

Gossiping
Modified version of Flooding.
Nodes dont broadcast a packet but send it to a randomly
selected neighbor.
It avoids the problem of Implosion.
Problem is that it takes a longer time for a message to
propagate throughout the network
Doesnt guarantee all nodes of the network will receive the
message.

Rumor Routing

Rumor Routing

Sequential Assignment
Routing

DATA GATHERING

Direct Transmission

Power Efficient Gathering for Sensor

Information Systems (PEGASIS)

Binary Scheme

Chain Based Three Level

Scheme

Thank you..