UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF WIRELESS SENSOR

NETWORKS

UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF WIRELESS SENSOR

NETWORKS
Introduction, Brief Historical Survey of Sensor Networks, and Background of Sensor Network Technology,
Ah-Hoc Networks, Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks: Sensor and Robots, Reconfigurable Sensor
Networks, Highway Monitoring, Military Applications, Civil and Environmental Engineering Applications,
Wildfire Instrumentation, Habitat Monitoring, Another Taxonomy of WSN Technology, Basic Sensor
Network Architectural Elements, Home Control, Medical Applications.

1.1 Introduction to wireless sensornetworks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a new class of wireless networks that are becoming
very popular with a huge number of civilian and military applications. A wireless sensor network
(WSN) is a wireless network that contains distributed independent sensor devices that are
meant to monitor physical or environmental conditions. A WSN consists of a set of connected
tiny sensor nodes, which communicate with each other and exchange information and data.
These nodes obtain information on the environment such as temperature, pressure, humidity
or pollutant, and send this information to a base station. The latter sends the info to a wired
network or activates an alarm or an action, depending on the type and magnitude of data
monitored.

Typical applications include weather and forest monitoring, battlefield surveillance,

physical monitoring of environmental conditions such as pressure, temperature, vibration,
pollutants, or tracing human and animal movement in forests and borders.

They use the same transmission medium (which is air) for wireless transmission as
wireless local area networks (WLANs). For nodes in a local area network to communicate
properly, standard access protocols like IEEE 802.11 are available. However, this and the other
protocols cannot be directly applied to WSNs. The major difference is that, unlike devices
participating in local area networks, sensors are equipped with a very small source of energy
(usually a battery), which drains out very fast. Hence the need arises to design new protocols
for MAC that are energy aware. Clearly there is some difference between a traditional WLAN
and a WSN, as the latter has limited resources.
1.3 Background

A wireless sensor network consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of small and

inexpensive nodes, which could have a static location or be dynamically deployed to monitor the
intended environment. Owing to their miniature size, they have a number of constraints. The
function of a WSN is basically monitoring. There are three classes of monitoring that a WSN
can observe: (a) entity monitoring, which means monitoring something such as civil
structures like bridges, tunnels, highways, and buildings, or the human body, such as
monitoring the organs of the body; (b) area monitoring, which includes monitoring the
environmental area alarms; and (c) area-entity monitoring, which includes monitoring
vehicles on the highway, and monitoring movement of an object.

The key positive feature of WSNs does not come from the strength of the individual
sensor nodes; it comes from the entire array of interconnected sensor nodes. Hence, WSNs are
expected to be large in scale from the point of view that they have a lot of nodes and they are
apt to be self-configuring, in order to achieve reliability. Since a wireless sensor node is
usually inexpensive, we would expect to have a huge number of nodes in a WSN.

Typically, sensor nodes communicate with each other by means of a multi-hop

scheme. The flow of information and data stops at particular nodes called base stations or
sinks. A sink or base station usually connects the sensor network to a fixed network to
distribute the data sensed for further processing. In general, base stations have enhanced
capabilities over regular nodes as they should carry out compound processing. This
substantiates the actuality that sinks have more advanced processors such as PCs/laptops with
more RAM memory, secondary storage, battery and computational power as they are expected
to perform more tasks than regular sensor nodes. It is worth noting here that one of the biggest
drawbacks of sensor networks is power use, which is really influenced by the interaction between
nodes.

In order to work out this problem, aggregation points are set up to the network, which
reduce the overall communication traffic between nodes and save energy. Typically, collection
points are ordinary nodes that get data from nearby nodes, carry out some sort of processing,
and then advance the filtered data to the subsequent hop. Sensor nodes are arranged into
groups, each group having a “group/ cluster head” as the leader. Communication within a
group should travel all the way through the cluster head. Then it is advanced to an adjacent
group head until it arrives at its destination, which is the sink or base station. A different scheme
for saving energy is to let the nodes go into sleep mode, if they are not needed, and to wake
them up when they are needed.

They use the same transmission medium (which is air) for wireless transmission as
wireless local area networks (WLANs). For nodes in a local area network to communicate
properly, standard access protocols like IEEE 802.11 are available. However, this and the other
protocols cannot be directly applied to WSNs. The major difference is that, unlike devices
participating in local area networks, sensors are equipped with a very small source of energy
(usually a battery), which drains out very fast. Hence the need arises to design new protocols
for MAC that are Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an infrastructure-less wireless
network that is deployed in a large number of wireless sensors in an ad-hoc manner that is
used to monitor the system, physical or environmental conditions.

The progress of wireless sensor networks was initially provoked by military appli-
cations; however, wireless sensor networks are now employed in many civilian applications
such as environment monitoring, industrial process monitoring, health care applications, road
and highway traffic control, smart homes and cities, and office automation. In health care
applications, wireless devices make patient monitoring less invasive, thus improving health
care. For utilities applications, wireless sensors provide an inexpensive scheme for collecting
system health data to minimize energy usage and enhance management of resources. As for
remote monitoring, a wide range of applications are covered where wireless networks can go
together with fixed networks and systems by minimizing wiring costs and permitting new
sorts of testing and measurement applications.

The main applications of remote monitoring are: (a) environmental monitoring of air,
soil, and water, (b) building and structural monitoring of bridges, subways, and buildings,
(c) process monitoring, (d) machine monitoring,(e) habitat monitoring, (f) intelligent
transportation systems, (g) air traffic control,(h) traffic surveillance, (i) video surveillance,
and (j) monitoring carbon transfer in rain forests, among others. Each node in a wireless
sensor network is usually equipped with a radio transceiver, a tiny microcontroller, and
a power source (typically a battery). The cost of a sensor node ranges from hundreds of
dollars to a quarter of a dollar, depending on the size of the network and the functionality
and sophistication required of each node. The size and price restrictions on sensor nodes
produce constraints on resources such as energy, memory, computational power, and
throughput. In general, a sensor network forms a wireless ad-hoc computer network, which
means that each sensor supports a multi-hop routing scheme.
 The major components of a wireless sensor network, which include sensors, signal
convertors such as analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) convertors,
processors, communication devices, and a power supply, are all becoming more and more
inexpensive and smaller. Stringent power expenditure requirements are necessary because
the sensor node needs to be reliable and able to run unattended for a long time, which can
be years. Among the factors that should be considered in the design of power sources of a
WSN are: (a) choice of power harvesting scheme or battery type, and (b) choice of small
power electronic design schemes. Companies that produce these devices are now developing
small sensor nodes and networks. Moreover, commercial off-the-shelf personal digital
assistants (PDAs) or pocket computers contain impressive computing power in a small package.
Such devices can easily be used as powerful sensor nodes. Wireless LANs like the popular
IEEE 802.11 standards can now offer performance very close to those of wired networks.
Moreover, we have now IEEE 802.15 standard that gives specifications for personal area
networks (PANs), which can be employed for WSNs as well.

1.3.1 Components of a wireless sensor node

The central component of a wireless sensor network is the sensor node. It is a very
tiny device that has the ability to sense its immediate environment and map or store the
information. Owing to the progress in semiconductor technology, the cost of these devices is
decreasing all the time. These tiny devices consist of the following main components (fig
1.1).

Figure 1.1 : Architecture of Wireless Sensor Networks

Microcontroller: This is a computer-on-a-chip which is very tiny in size although capable of

doing powerful tasks including controlling the functions of other devices connected to it. In
general, a microcontroller consists of a microprocessor, a RAM memory, and associated
peripherals. These days, there are other devices available on the market that can be used in
place of microprocessors for performing the same actions. Examples include: Field
programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and
digital signal processors (DSPs). Each of these devices has its advantages and disadvantages,
but micro- processors are the best choice for small scale to very small scale embedded
systems owing to their low power consumption and moderate to good computing capabilities.

Transceiver: This is a transmitter–receiver that is used for communication purposes to send

and receive data, and commands. The choice of communication means of WSNs is the radio-
frequency. These sensor nodes usually use the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM)
frequency bands.
External memory: Wireless sensor nodes usually use flash memories owing to their small size
and reasonable storage capacity, which is always increasing. Based on the requirement of the
nodes, we can have a user and a program memory. The size of the external memory depends on
the application.

Power source: The sources of power consumption in the nodes are the node programming,
sensing and data collecting, data processing, and data communication. Usually, most of the
power is needed for transmitting data. Power is stored in the sensor nodes in the form of
batteries. The cost of batteries has recently decreased drastically. Typically these batteries
are for one-time use.

In general, power sources are typically divided into primary and secondary sources.
The primary sources cannot be recharged, where secondary sources have to be charged on a
regular basis. The major factors of primary and secondary sources are: range, capacity,
temperature, current depletion level, and self-discharge characteristics. Fuel cells are
expected to come into use as power sources for the sensors of the WSNs.

Where secondary cells are employed, the charging source may be harvested from the cell’s
operational environment. The famous example of this is the harvesting of solar energy in
order to charge a battery. However, there are other harvesting energy methods that can be used
such as wind power, thermal energy, and vibration. In mechanical driven settings, harvesting a
battery may not be needed as the harvested movement is constant, for instance in a pipeline.
One popular method is solar systems, which necessitate some degree of installation to guarantee
the best direction, especially at soaring elevations. We can obtain only about 25% efficiency
from the best available silicon solar cell systems.
Sensors:

In general, sensors may be categorized into classes based on their operating principles:
(a) physical sensors, (b) thermal sensors, (c) chemical sensors, (d) biological sensors, and (e)
electromagnetic, optical, and acoustic sensors. Sensors are typically hardware devices that
sense the data from the monitored environments and produce some response that is
measurable in nature. An analog-to-digital (A/D) convertor is used for converting the
analog collected data to the digital form to be processed further by the microcontroller.
The sensors in wireless sensor nodes are typically very small sized micro- electronic
sensing devices which are equipped with a very limited supply of battery power.

Examples of some commercial sensors include: BTnode, BEAN, COTS and DOT, MICA
and KMote. Sensors can be placed in any kind of environment for days without any
attention. The major challenge for a sensor is the life of the battery, which is limited. The
battery has usually short life. Thus, schemes are needed to conserve as much energy as
possible. If we envisage that such devices are deployed in the battle ground in enemy areas, we
can clearly see that it is not possible to recharge or change the battery of these devices. It is
true that we may be able to deploy these sensors in enemy territory by the use of
aircraft/helicopter, but it may not be possible to invade the enemy territory just to replace the
battery. The major source of energy consumption is the communication between the
nodes. Moreover, nodes tend to coordinate with each other for some particular tasks.

1.3.2 Classification of sensor networks

Owing to the rapid progress in wireless sensor networks, a variety of applications

with different needs have emerged. In order to deal with these changing requirements, there
are many distinct network designs, in which protocols for distinct layers of the network have
been implemented. Although there are many different ways to categorize the sensor network
designs, here we show some of the essential differences in sensor networks.

Data sink(s): One of the most crucial features of sensor networks is the characteristic of data
sink(s). In some circumstances, the end user(s) may be entrenched inside the sensor network
or may be mobile access points that gather data once in a while. This difference may be crucial,
as efficient dispersed data storage methods may be effective in the latter case.

Sensor mobility: Another classification of sensor networks may be based on the nature of
the sensor being organized. Normally, sensors can be interpreted as being stationary; however,
some recent sensor networks projects like ZebraNet use mobile.
Sensor nodes: Moreover, in military applications, sensors may be placed on soldiers’ bodies or
clothes, or on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to communicate with an organized sensor
network. These sensors can manipulate protocols at the networking layer as well as for the
services of localization with the feature of mobility.

Sensor resources: Sensor nodes may differ with the availability of computer resources. It is
apparent that memory and the conditions of processing should affect the implementation of
protocols.
Traffic patterns: Another important feature to be considered is the traffic that is generated
in the network. In most of the event-driven applications, sensors may function for the bulk of
the time, producing data traffic only when an event of significance is found, whereas in other
applications such as environmental monitoring the data have to be produced constantly.

1.3.3 Sensor Network Architecture

Sensor Network Architecture is used in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). It can be used in
various places like schools, hospitals, buildings, roads, etc for various applications like
disaster management, security management, crisis management, etc.

There are 2 types of architecture used in WSN: Layered Network Architecture, and Clustered
Architecture. These are explained as following below.

1.Layered Network Architecture:

Layered Network Architecture makes use of a few hundred sensor nodes and a single powerful
base station. Network nodes are organized into concentric Layers.
It consists of 5 layers and three cross layers (fig 1.2).

The 5 layers are:

1. Application Layer
2. Transport Layer
3. Network Layer
4. Data Link Layer
5. Physical Layer

The cross layers consist of the following:

• Power Management Plane
• Mobility Management Plane
• Task Management Plane
 Figure 1.2: Layered architecture of WSN

The advantage of using Layered Network Architecture is that each node participates only in
short-distance, low a power transmission to nodes of the neighboring nodes because of
which power consumption is less as compared to other Sensor Network Architecture. It is
scalable and has a higher fault tolerance.

2. Clustered Network Architecture:

In Clustered Network Architecture, Sensor Nodes autonomously clubs into groups called
clusters. It is based on the Leach Protocol which makes use of clusters. Leach Protocol
stands for Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy.

Properties of Leach Protocol:

• It is a 2-tier hierarchy clustering architecture.

• It is a distributed algorithm for organizing the sensor nodes into groups called clusters.
• The cluster head nodes in each of the autonomously formed clusters create the Time-
division multiple access (TDMA) schedules.
• It makes use of the concept called Data Fusion which makes it energy efficient.
 Figure 1.3 Clustered Network Architecture

Clustered Network Architecture is a very useful sensor network because of the

property of Data Fusion. Inside each cluster, each node communicates with the
cluster head to gather the information. All the clusters which are formed share their
gathered information to the base station. The cluster formation and selection of
cluster head inside each cluster is an independent and autonomous distributed process
as shown in fig 1.3.

1.4 Ad hoc Networks:

An ad hoc network is one that is spontaneously formed when devices connect and
communicate with each other. The term ad hoc is a Latin word that literally means "for this,"
implying improvised or impromptu.
Ad hoc networks are mostly wireless local area networks (LANs). The devices
communicate with each other directly instead of relying on a base station or access points as in
wireless LANs for data transfer co-ordination (fig 1.4). Each device participates in routing
activity, by determining the route using the routing algorithm and forwarding data to other
devices via this route.
 Figure 1.4 Ad hoc Networks

1.4.1 Classifications of Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks can be classified into several types depending upon the nature of their
applications. The most prominent ad hoc networks that are commonly incorporated are
illustrated in the diagram below (fig 1.5).

Figure 1.5 Types of Ad hoc Networks

1.5 WSN Applications
Various applications of WSNs are currently either already in mature use or still in infant
stages of development. WSN applications are classified according to the nature of their use
into six main categories which, as illustrated in Fig. 6, namely are: military, health,
environmental, flora and fauna, industrial, and urban.

In each category, various subcategories are considered. In what follows in this section,
the nature of each one of these categories and subcategories is explained. Additionally,
through the indicative examination of characteristic examples of them, their particular
features are explained, while their benefits and problems are denoted.

Moreover, various methodologies and technical means that are used in these
applications either for sensing or for processing purposes are discussed, while similarities and
dissimilarities existing among them are identified.

Figure 1.6 : Overview of the most popular categories of applications of WSNs.

Military Applications
The military domain is not only the first field of human activity that used WSNs but
it is also considered to have motivated the initiation of sensor network research. Smart
Dust is a typical example of these initial research efforts, which were performed in the late
90 s in order to develop sensor nodes which despite their very small size would be capable
of accomplishing spying activities. The technological advances achieved since then made
WSNs capable of supporting various operations. In Figure 1.7 the main subcategories of the
military applications of WSNs which namely are battlefield surveillance, combat monitoring,
and intruder detection, are illustrated along with the types of sensors that are most
commonly used in them.
 Specifically, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE),
and Toxic Industrial Material (TIM) sensors may be used to detect the presence of such
substances. To detect intrusion, WSNs may use infrared, photoelectric, laser, acoustic, and
vibration sensors. Similarly, RAdio Detection And Ranging (RADAR), LIght Detection And
Ranging (LIDAR), LAser Detection And Ranging (LADAR) and ultrasonic sensors are used
by nodes in WSNs in order to detect the distance from objects of interest. Likewise, LADAR
and infrared sensors are used for imaging purposes.

Figure 1.7 Military applications of WSN

Additionally, the flexibility that WSNs have in their structure enables them to adapt to
various requirements. For instance, in battlefield operations large-scale WSNs consisting of
many thousands of nodes, which are non-manually deployed, are used. In urban warfare and
force protection operations, WSNs used consist of hundreds of manually deployed nodes. In
other-than-war operations all scales of WSNs and deployment methods are used.

WSNs that have been developed for battlefield surveillance, combat monitoring, and
intruder detection are examined in the following subsection.

Battlefield Surveillance

In applications of this type, the sensor nodes of the WSN may be deployed on a
battlefield nearby of the paths that enemy forces may use. The main advantage provided is
that the WSN not only can be spontaneously positioned but also can function, without need
for continuous attendance and maintenance. The terrain of the battlefield in most cases is
absolutely variable. This plays an important role for both the coverage and the energy
consumption of the sensor nodes. Some of these applications are presented below.

The use of WSN technology for ground surveillance is studied. Specifically, the
authors propose a system that consists of low-cost common nodes which are capable of
sensing magnetic and acoustic signals produced by various moving target objects. The
system aims to detect and categorize various targets, such as vehicles and troop movements,
based on the spatial differences of the signal strength detected by the sensors. Figure 1.8
illustrates the architecture of this system.

Figure 1.8 Illustration of the system architecture for target tracking.

The system consists of inexpensive multi-sensing units that combine both active and
passive sonars. The system can be scaled to a large number of sensors, which are deployed in
littoral waters according to a specific pattern and ocean depth. These sensing units utilize
their passive sonar to detect a diesel-electric submarine and their active sonar to confirm
their target. The unit that has confirmed a target, notifies its neighboring sensing units by
using an alarm signal that contains its ID code. Whenever the units send multiple alarm
signals within a predefined period of time, an alert is triggered. Furthermore, the system can
acquire low False Alarm Rate (FAR) due to the very low range of the active sonar (50 m) that
solves the acoustic multipath problem of the conventional sonobuoys.

Combat Monitoring

Within a battlefield the firing of guns, mortars artillery, and other weaponry creates
sound, heat, and vibrations. This information can be recorded with the use of WSNs and
provides an expectation of the location of the enemy. This type of application is described
below

In the use of acoustic sensor arrays suspended below tethered aerostats to detect and
localize moving vehicles, transient signals from mortars, artillery, small arms fire, and
locate their source is presented.

The specific detection system can be used in conjunction with an acoustic vector sensor, to
amplify the possibility of locating the threat using the shockwave created by the supersonic
bullet and the muzzle blast created by the gun.

The system consisting of interconnected Body Sensor Networks (BSNs), a sub-family of

WSNs, for real-time health monitoring of soldiers. A key component of this system is a BSN
that integrates various physiological and biomedical sensors. These sensors are an
accelerometer, an EEG simulator, and a SpO2 sensor, which can be embedded within an
advanced combat helmet worn by each soldier. They monitor the various information of
health status in real time, such as blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and heart rate. By
utilizing the data collected, various methods can be applied in order to train soldiers more
efficiently and prepare them more adequately for future engagements.

Intruder Detection

The knowledge of the location of the enemy is considered to be one of the most critical
pieces of information during military operations. Whichever side in a conflict has this
knowledge is one step ahead and closer to victory. With the utilization of WSNs within a
battlefield, intruders can be detected in good time to prevent loss of supplies or territory.
An intruder can be detected in various ways. A system that can recognize intruders by
utilizing Unattended Acoustic and Seismic Sensors to record vibrations and sounds of
typical soldier actions. To detect an intruder, with the aid of these sensors, typical military
activities, such as equipment handling, walking, rifle loading, etc., have been measured and
recorded in a controlled environment and in the field. Although the distance of detection
may be small, the information provided by the network can be used to locate an intruder in
difficult terrains with large vegetation where visibility is limited.
In another application of WSNs, developed to detect intruders, is introduced. The
authors described a system with dense deployment of a large number of miniaturized
wireless sensors, which are small, low cost, and consume low energy. This system utilizes
acoustic and seismic sensors to provide detection information to the user and tracking and
visual sensors in order to lower the false alarm rate.

Health Applications

In the health domain, WSNs utilize advanced medical sensors to monitor patients
within a healthcare facility, as a hospital or within their home, as well as to provide real
time monitoring of patient’s vitals by utilizing wearable hardware. In Figure 6, the main
subcategories of health applications of WSNs namely patient wearable monitoring, home
assisting systems, and hospital patient monitoring are illustrated along with the types of
sensors that are most commonly used in them. WSNs that have been developed for these
types of health applications (fig 1.9) are examined in the following subsection.

Health

Applications

Patient Wearable Home Assisting Hospital Patient

Monitoring Systems Monitoring

Motion Seismic RF
Biomedical
Sensors Sensors
Sensors
Sensors

Position Humidity
Temperature
Sensors Sensors
Sensors

Figure. 1.9 The subcategories of the health applications of WSNs and the sensors
used in them.

Patient Wearable Monitoring

Health monitoring applications can be combined with wearable hardware with

embedded biomedical sensors that provide the patient’s health status in a remote
environment or within a healthcare facility.
A healthcare solution of this type, is examined. It uses real-time sensors incorporated
in smartphones along with a barcode system to provide personalized medicine care
assistance. The mechanism developed, performs Electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring in
real time. Also, the monitoring of the blood glucose level, blood pressure, and several kinds
of diagnostics could be possible too, by using real-time sensors. This system developed is
illustrated in Figure 1.10.
 Figure 1.10. An illustration of the real time electrocardiogram (ECG)
monitoring environment

An alert portable tele-medical monitor system (AMON) is aiming to provide

continuous monitoring for high-risk cardiac/respiratory patients. The system collects
multiple vital signs, detects multi-parameter medical emergencies and is connected to a
cellular telemedicine center (TMC). This system uses a wrist worn device, to monitor vital
parameters of patients in order to provide an integrated picture of their health condition.

Home Assisting Systems

A homecare monitoring platform with internet remote connection to assisted people and
their environment. This platform can monitor and diagnose patients remotely, in real time
in their home environment by the utilization of wearable or even surgically inserted bio-
sensors. A hybrid model of the platform is proposed, with various levels in terms of
functionality, combining fixed and mobile nodes. These levels range from simple data
acquisition of the assisted person to primary care and emergency nodes, up to the
communication and coordination with an appointed help center as a hospital.

The real-time sensors for the diagnosis of cardiac patients by using smartphone and
wearable sensors. In a remote real time monitoring for severe cardiac patients unable to attend
a routine checkup. One of the main reasons behind this technology is to commercialize it for the
benefit of those patients who are not financially sound. Furthermore, the system was
developed in such a manner that any kind of crisis phase is dealt with in terms of alerting
messages that are automatically sent to the doctor. An overview of the operation of this system
is shown in Figure 1.11.
 Figure 1.11 Alerting message using wearable sensors

Hospital Patient Monitoring (or Hospitalization)

Within healthcare facilities, such as a hospital, WSNs systems can be integrated to

provide real time patient monitoring and emergency alerting for a more precise and quick
response. Specifically, the authors described a WSN application where wireless sensors are
placed within the emergency rooms of John Hopkins hospital to monitor in real time the
blood oxygen and heart rate of the patients. The researchers collected the performance
statistics of the network and despite the difficulty of the hospital environment due to
interference and radio noise, the application of WSNs can improve the operation of a healthcare
facility. The device developed is depicted in Figure 1.12.

Figure 1.12. A monitor that can both display and transmit vital signs.
 Environmental Applications

Environmental applications that demand continuous monitoring of ambient

conditions at hostile and remote areas can be improved with the utilization of WSNs. In
Figure 1.13, the main subcategories of environmental applications of WSNs, namely water
monitoring, air monitoring, and emergency alerting, are depicted along with the types of
sensors that are typically used in them. WSNs that have been developed for these types of
environmental applications are studied in the following subsection.

Figure 1.13. The subcategories of the environmental WSN applications and the
types of the sensors used in them.

Water Monitoring

Water, either for drinking or oceanic is an important factor in human lives, therefore the
monitoring of water has a great academic interest.
WSN application to evaluate the quality of fresh drinkable water. designed a Cyber
physical system (CPS) called Pipe Sense, which is an in-pipe system for water monitoring
that utilizes RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) based WSN. The network can provide
information about water demand or water quality and various repair information such as
weak spots or pipe leakage. The in-pipe RFID sensors collect information from the system
and send them to the data servers, where algorithms provide decision support.

In order to prevent damage to the flora and fauna of a fish farm from feed and fecal
waste, the authors designed an Underwater WSN (UWSN) with ground based wireless
sensor nodes capable of monitoring the pollution of the farm. The sensor nodes are mobile in
a limited space in order to measure a greater area.
 Air Monitoring

Air is a vital element for human lives and nowadays the air pollution of the atmosphere is
a result of many modern human activities. WSNs can be utilized for air quality monitoring in
occupied regions in order to prevent dangerous diseases and contaminations or risk the
health of people.
An air quality monitoring application assisted by WSNs, called WSN-AQMS, is
proposed. The specific system combines gas sensors along with Libelium waspmotes to
measure air quality parameters of gases such as ozone, CO, and NO2. The waspmotes
monitor in real time the air quality and utilize the Zigbee protocol for data communication.
The authors further introduced the Clustering Protocol for Air Sensor network (CPAS) in
order to support the operation of this system

Emergency Alerting

Proactive monitoring of the causes of natural disasters, can help to avoid these disasters
or/and lower their cost. WSNs can be utilized for monitoring common disastrous causes in real
time to provide proactive alerts in order to lower damage or even prevent disaster. Typical
examples described in the rest of this subsection, are related to the monitoring of seismic
activity, volcanic activity, forest fires, and tsunamis.

Seismic Activity Monitoring

Earthquakes can cause enormous damage to an occupied region where they take place.
WSNs can be utilized to monitor seismic activity in real time in order to take precautionary
measures and enable the authorities to act in advance. A warning system for earthquakes in
order to increase the time before an earthquake so as to take precaution measures. The
authors deployed a WSN in the island of Mauritius, which has high seismic activity. The
system monitors seismic activity by utilizing primary waves (P-waves) and estimates local
velocity and the hypocenter’s location according to time delays in the arrival of the P-waves
at the sensors.

Volcanic Activity Monitoring

Volcanoes can cause enormous damage to nearby towns or cities when they are activated.
Before a volcano erupts, there are many signs that a WSN system can measure, proactively, in
order to inform nearby citizens about the eruption. When such a system is applied, citizens can
protect their families and belongings by transporting them outside of the area of the eruption,
preventing further damage. Below is an example of such a system.

WSN based system to monitor volcanic activity components is proposed. The system is
low cost, flexible, and easy to deploy and to maintain for remote locations. The users of the
system can choose GPS data synchronization when the sensor nodes have signal reception, or a
specific algorithm when they have not, to collect accurate timestamps of each sample. Pieces
of the equipment used, are shown in Figure 1.14.

Figure 1.14. A depiction of a geophone sensor with a wireless antenna deployed in

the field

Forest Fire Prevention

Forest fires can destroy both animals and vegetation, thus resulting in huge ecological
disasters. In order to prevent such disastrous events WSNs can be deployed within forests
and monitor in real time related parameters in order to assist in forest fire prevention. One
example of this type of WSN application is presented below.
Due to the rapid climate change taking place, the necessity for proper forest fire prevention
means is extremely pressing. It combines traditional methods (patrols, watchtowers, satellite
imaging) to a WSN array monitoring system using ZigBee protocol. Related parameters as
temperature, humidity, etc. are monitored in real time and sent to a monitoring center in order
to be analyzed. Then the system can make quick estimations of fire danger and inform the
authorities.

Tsunami Detection

Another natural disaster is the tsunami waves. It is crucial for coastal regions to be
informed early of such a catastrophe. WSNs can be utilized for real time monitoring
enabling the authorities to act proactively. Below a Tsunami detection WSN application is
presented.
 A tsunami detection system which utilizes a WSN with underwater sensor nodes deployed
in coastal regions is proposed. In order to inform proactively the authorities, the system
utilizes a lexical resource messaging system, called Senti Word Net, which is able to provide
information extracted from the sensor messages.

Flora and Fauna Applications

Both flora and fauna domains are vital for every country. In Figure 1.1.5 the main
subcategories of flora and fauna applications of WSNs which namely are greenhouse
monitoring, crop monitoring, and livestock farming, are illustrated along with the types of
sensors that are most commonly used in them.

WSNs that have been developed for these types of flora and fauna applications are
examined in the following subsection.

Greenhouse Monitoring

An important sector of the agriculture domain involves greenhouses. Within them

many crops can be grown to provide sustainable food while climate crops can be harvested
all year round if certain conditions are applied within the greenhouse. Therefore, WSNs can
be applied in greenhouse monitoring and control to improve their operation. Below are some
examples of these applications.

The Agricultural Environment Monitoring System (AEMS), an inexpensive and easy to

apply system that can collect and monitor data related to crop growth, inside or outside a
greenhouse via WSN sensors and CCTV cameras. The system gathers vital environmental
parameters such as temperature, light intensity, humidity, air pressure, rainfall level, pH,
and electrical conductivity (EC).
 Figure 1.15. The subcategories of flora and fauna applications of WSNs and
the types of the sensors used in them

A relevant system developed for greenhouses which has energy management and
indoor climate control capabilities.. The system monitors vital greenhouse parameters such
as indoor luminance, temperature, and relative humidity, via sensor nodes. The indoor
climate control is possible by the utilization of two fuzzy logic controllers, P
(Proportional) and PD (Proportional-Derivative) that use the desired indoor climatic set-
points. Furthermore, the system utilizes output actuations of heating units, motor-controlled
windows and shading curtains, artificial lighting, etc. in order to achieve more precise
greenhouse control.

Livestock Farming

Livestock farming is a main sector of the fauna domain. WSNs can be applied in
various tasks such as livestock monitoring. Below we have collected some examples of
these applications.

A sensor-based system developed to analyze the behavior of livestock animals and support
their farming was proposed. Green pastures are used by cattle for grazing, so grass growth
was analyzed through photographic sensors, so that animals can be moved towards them.
Their major objective of work was to design rugged hardware that could be used outdoors
for modeling both individual and herd behavior of animals. Although, specially designed
sensors to monitor animal behavior, such as sleeping, grazing, and ruminating, are used,
cattle monitoring still poses several challenges like radio attenuation caused due to factors
such as animal body, mobility etc.
 In an inexpensive low power collar designed to assist livestock farming is proposed.
The system developed uses a solar power relay router and two antennas placed so that the
collar radio coverage is optimized. Also, a novel protocol, named Implicit Routing Protocol
(IRP), was proposed in order to cope with the packet losses, which are caused due to the
mobility of the animals.
In a system based on RFID and WSN technologies, which can be applied in modern
farm large-scale management systems. The proposed system can identify and track all
animals (i.e., pigs) that are present within the farm, and monitor their health as well as the
environmental conditions. According to the authors this system, by the aforementioned
parameters, can be used to prevent diseases, determine environment pollution, and inform on
food safety issues.

Industrial Applications

WSNs can be applied in various industrial applications to solve many related problems.
In Figure 1.16, the main subcategories of industrial applications of WSNs namely logistics,
robotics, and machinery health monitoring are illustrated. These specific categories of
applications are studied in the rest of this subsection.

Figure 1.16. The subcategories of the industrial applications of WSNs and

the types of the sensors used in them

Logistics

The domain of logistics is an area of interest where WSNs can be applied, because many
logistics systems need real time monitoring of various environmental parameters and better
handling of packages. These requirements can be fulfilled by combining the logistics
systems with WSNs. Some types of these applications are described below.
 The transport logistics sector requires low cost and high-quality during deliveries.
In the development and deployment of a WSN based system for monitoring transportation
conditions, such as temperature and humidity, within a cargo container travelling via both a
trans-Atlantic cargo vessel and a lorry is described. The main idea for the deployment of the
monitoring system is depicted in Figure 1.17. It is shown that the use of a system of this kind,
can increase quality by providing better supervision and lower the cost by reducing losses
during transportation.

Figure 1.17. Depiction of the basic configuration of a WSN based system for
transport logistics applications

The application of WSNs in Cold Chain Logistics (a continuous temperature-controlled

supply chain) can greatly improve the monitoring and management of these chains. WSNs
are suitable for real time monitoring of many environmental parameters and provide accurate
data collection that meets the demand of Cold Chain Logistics. The researchers used a
Zigbee ad hoc network model to build the system’s framework. By using fuzzy control
decision, the environmental parameters are maintained in a stable range and with Maximum
Similarities Multiple Characteristic Recognition (MSMCR) the safety of cold-chain food is
ensured.

Another application of WSNs developed for Cold Chain Logistics. This system focuses
only on aquatic products and their transportation. In order to develop such a system, the authors
proposed a WSN integrated with Compressed Sending (CS), in order to combat heavy data
traffic from the real time sensor data transmission. Also, CS provides a low complexity
approximation which assists storage, transmission, processing, and meets the recourse
constraints of WSNs.
A WSN application in logistics that utilizes GPS technology. This system monitors in
real-time the status of the goods and has embedded a terminal, which is used to locate the
goods and a cloud services platform, which is used to identify the recipient.
 Robotics

Nowadays there are many applications that combine WSNs and robots. Robots can
cooperate and combat some of the major problems of WSNs, such as sensor node mobility,
node redeployment, travelling salesman, etc. Typical WSN applications of this kind are
presented below.
A robotic navigation method provides road maps for the robot to traverse. It uses a WSN
with sensors, designed to provide sophisticated maps of their sensing areas. Specifically,
each sensor constructs a map, based on the traversable area sensed. Then, all sensor maps
are combined to create one large map. Once the road maps are generated, the sensors are
used to sense areas of interest for the robot to travel to. The robot then considers all possible
roads to take and selects the most efficient path available in the network. If an area becomes
hazardous for the robot, the network can reconfigure the road map, and remove this
hazardous area from the list of available paths.
One of the most difficult tasks concerning WSNs is the maintenance of a projected
network. A combination of WSNs and robotics where a robotic network servicing system, named
Randomized Robot assisted Relocation of Static Sensors (R3S2) was developed. In R3S2, robots
move around a network which is contained within a virtual grid. The robot moves to the least
recently visited grid point, searching for sensing holes in the network. When an area that is
not being covered by a sensor is detected, the robot will find a node which has overlapping
coverage with other nodes and move it to the uncovered area. In addition, if the robot
discovers redundant sensors, it will move the nodes to cover a greater area.
A different approach where a mobile robot is used to transfer data from a widespread
network between nodes that are out of reach from one another for various reasons. This is
the so-called travelling salesman problem (TSP)—within a WSN. By having a robot
traveling among nodes which are out of each other’s wireless communication range, it allows
the network to be widespread while also saving power by using the robot for data muling.

Machinery Health Monitoring

The objective of machinery health monitoring is to examine the performance of various

types of technical equipment and to either detect or predict the occurrence of faults that are
obstructive or even catastrophic for their operation.
WSN is developed in order to perform energy usage evaluation and condition monitoring
for electric machines. The motor efficiency and health condition are estimated non-
intrusively by using wireless nodes that monitor the motor terminal quantities (i.e., line
voltages, line currents, and temperature, with no interference with the operation of the
electric machines.
WSN based monitoring system of oil and gas pipelines, named REMONG, is proposed.
In order to detect the existence of leakages, the system uses wireless sensor nodes which
monitor the pressure and temperature of the pipeline fluid at several points of interest on the
pipelines which are stretched over large geographical areas.
WSN designed to enhance safety in industrial machinery consisting of a main vehicle and
an attached trailer is proposed. A 3D accelerometer and a 3D magnetometer, incorporated in
a sensor system device, monitor the trailer operating conditions and the corresponding data
are wirelessly transmitted to a processing unit which executes a stability control algorithm.
A vibrational energy harvesting system developed, converts kinetic energy from trailer natural
vibrations to electrical energy for the system power supply.

Urban Applications
The variety of sensing abilities offered by WSNs also provides an opportunity to gain
an unprecedented level of information about a target area, be it a room, a building, or
outdoors. WSNs are indeed a tool to measure the spatial and temporal features of any
phenomena within an urban environment, providing a limitless number of applications. The
most popular applications of WSNs in the urban domain are related to smart homes, smart
cities, transportation systems, and structural health monitoring.