Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Introduction to Wireless
Sensor Networks
In This Chapter
• An introduction to wireless sensor networks
• History of WSN
• WSN architecture and protocol stack
• Mobile ad-hoc networks versus WSN
• Challenges in WSN
1.1 Introduction
Recent advances in sensing technology, wireless communication, and digital comput-
ing techniques have led to the creation and subsequent proliferation of wireless sensor
networks (WSN). A WSN can be broadly described as a network of nodes that makes
a collaborative effort in sensing certain specified data around its periphery and thereby
controls the surrounding environment (Verdone et al. 2008). It is usually a concatena-
tion of a data acquisition network and a data dissemination network. The data acquisi-
tion network consists of the actual sensor nodes along with the mobile or stationary
base station (sink node); the data dissemination network is a collection of wired and
wireless networks that is involved in postprocessing of the acquired data. However, the
acquisition network is severely constrained in computing, storage, and power levels
when compared to the dissemination network. A stark distinction between WSN and
other legacy wireless networks is the decentralized architecture. In addition, the higher
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