Wireless sensor network (WSN) has emerged as one of the most promising technologies for the future. This has been enabled by advances in technology and availability of small, inexpensive, and smart sensors resulting in cost effective and easily deployable WSNs. However, researchers must address a variety of challenges to facilitate the widespread deployment of WSN technology in real-world domains. In this survey, we give an overview of wireless sensor networks and their application domains including the challenges that should be addressed in order to push the technology further. Then we review the recent technologies and testbeds for WSNs. Finally, we identify several open research issues that need to be investigated in future.

Our survey is different from existing surveys in that we focus on recent developments in wireless sensor network technologies. We review the leading research projects, standards and technologies, and platforms. Moreover, we highlight a recent phenomenon in WSN research that is to explore synergy between sensor networks and other technologies and explain how this can help sensor networks achieve their full potential. This paper intends to help new researchers entering the domain of WSNs by providing a comprehensive survey on recent developments.

Wireless sensor networks: a survey on recent developments and potential synergies

Wireless Sensor Networks and Multi-UAV systems for natural disaster management

Recently, the big data emerged as a hot topic because of the tremendous growth of the information and communication technology. One of the highly anticipated key contributors of the big data in the future networks is the distributed wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Although the data generated by an individual sensor may not appear to be significant, the overall data generated across numerous sensors in the densely distributed WSNs can produce a significant portion of the big data. Energy-efficient big data gathering in the densely distributed sensor networks is, therefore, a challenging research area. One of the most effective solutions to address this challenge is to utilize the sink node's mobility to facilitate the data gathering. While this technique can reduce energy consumption of the sensor nodes, the use of mobile sink presents additional challenges such as determining the sink node's trajectory and cluster formation prior to data collection. In this paper, we propose a new mobile sink routing and data gathering method through network clustering based on modified expectation-maximization technique. In addition, we derive an optimal number of clusters to minimize the energy consumption. The effectiveness of our proposal is verified through numerical results.

/pdf/toward-energy-efficient-big-data-gathering-in-densely-2ljcdywgmb.pdf

Toward Energy Efficient Big Data Gathering in Densely Distributed Sensor Networks

Irregular repetition slotted ALOHA is a random access scheme where users transmit multiple copies of a packet to the receiver to provide time-domain diversity; then, the receiver attempts to iteratively decode packets and cancel their interference contribution in other time slots, increasing the chance of resolving collisions and decoding more packets. This scheme was shown to support larger system loads compared to conventional slotted ALOHA. In the original scheme, collision resolution between l colliding packets is possible only when l - 1 of those packets are decoded in prior iterations, which is probable because of the other copies of each packet transmitted in other slots. However, although asymptotic analysis promises high efficiency of this scheme, the analysis relies on the large number of slots participating in the iterative collision resolution, which requires large receiver complexity and introduces delay. In this paper, we study this scheme for receivers capable of decoding multiple colliding packets jointly, which increases the chance of decoding more packets under large system loads. Asymptotic analysis for this generalized model is provided and it is shown by simulations that a multiuser detector supports larger loads for low number of slots jointly processed.

Irregular repetition slotted ALOHA with multiuser detection

Long-term wildfire monitoring using distributed in situ temperature sensors is an accurate, yet demanding environmental monitoring application, which requires long-life, low-maintenance, low-cost sensors and a simple, fast, error-proof deployment procedure. We present in this paper the most important design considerations and optimizations of all elements of a low-cost WSN platform prototype for long-term, low-maintenance pervasive wildfire monitoring, its preparation for a nearly three-month field test, the analysis of the causes of failure during the test and the lessons learned for platform improvement. The main components of the total cost of the platform (nodes, deployment and maintenance) are carefully analyzed and optimized for this application. The gateways are designed to operate with resources that are generally used for sensor nodes, while the requirements and cost of the sensor nodes are significantly lower. We define and test in simulation and in the field experiment a simple, but effective communication protocol for this application. It helps to lower the cost of the nodes and field deployment procedure, while extending the theoretical lifetime of the sensor nodes to over 16 years on a single 1 Ah lithium battery.

/pdf/design-and-field-test-of-a-wsn-platform-prototype-for-long-3jhdceua3g.pdf

Design and Field Test of a WSN Platform Prototype for Long-Term Environmental Monitoring

This paper is not a survey related to generic wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which have been largely treated in a number of survey papers addressing more focused issues; rather, it specifically addresses architectural aspects related to WSNs in some way connected with a satellite link, a topic that presents challenging interworking aspects. The main objective is to provide an overview of the potential role of a satellite segment in future WSNs. In this perspective, requirements of the most meaningful WSN applications have been drawn and matched to characteristics of various satellite/space systems in order to identify suitable integrated configurations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

/pdf/a-survey-of-architectures-and-scenarios-in-satellite-based-q8swigr3y0.pdf

M. A. Marchitti

Papers

A survey of architectures and scenarios in satellite-based wireless sensor networks: system design aspects