Wireless Sensor Network

Architecture and Its

Applications
Currently, WSN (Wireless Sensor Network) is the most standard
services employed in commercial and industrial applications, because of its
technical development in a processor, communication, and low-power
usage of embedded computing devices. The wireless sensor network
architecture is built with nodes that are used to observe the surroundings
like temperature, humidity, pressure, position, vibration, sound, etc. These
nodes can be used in various real-time applications to perform various
tasks like smart detecting, a discovery of neighbor nodes, data processing
and storage, data collection, target tracking, monitor and controlling,
synchronization, node localization, and effective routing between the base
station and nodes. Presently, WSNs are beginning to be organized in an
enhanced step. It is not awkward to expect that in 10 to 15 years that the
world will be protected with WSNs with entree to them via the Internet. This
can be measured as the Internet becoming a physical n/w. This technology
is thrilling with infinite potential for many application areas like medical,
environmental, transportation, military, entertainment, homeland defense,
crisis management, and also smart spaces.

What is a Wireless Sensor Network?

A Wireless Sensor Network is one kind of wireless network that
includes a large number of circulating, self-directed, minute, low powered
devices named sensor nodes called motes. These networks certainly cover
a huge number of spatially distributed, little, battery-operated, embedded
devices that are networked to caringly collect, process, and transfer data to
the operators, and it has controlled the capabilities of computing &
processing. Nodes are tiny computers, which work jointly to form networks.
 Wireless Sensor
Network
The sensor node is a multi-functional, energy-efficient wireless device. The
applications of motes in industrial are widespread. A collection of sensor
nodes collects the data from the surroundings to achieve specific
application objectives. The communication between motes can be done
with each other using transceivers. In a wireless sensor network, the
number of motes can be in the order of hundreds/ even thousands. In
contrast with sensor n/ws, Ad Hoc networks will have fewer nodes without
any structure.

Wireless Sensor Network Architecture

The most common wireless sensor network architecture follows the OSI
architecture Model. The architecture of the WSN includes five layers and
three cross layers. Mostly in sensor n/w, we require five layers, namely
application, transport, n/w, data link & physical layer. The three cross
planes are namely power management, mobility management, and task
management. These layers of the WSN are used to accomplish the n/w
and make the sensors work together in order to raise the complete
efficiency of the network. Please follow the below link for Types of
wireless sensor networks and WSN topologies
Types of WSN Architectures
The architecture used in WSN is sensor network architecture. This kind of
architecture is applicable in different places such as hospitals, schools,
roads, buildings as well as it is used in different applications such as
security management, disaster management & crisis management, etc.
There are two types of architectures used in wireless sensor networks
which include the following. There are 2 types of wireless sensor
architectures: Layered Network Architecture, and Clustered Architecture.
These are explained as following below.
  Layered Network Architecture
 Clustered Network Architecture
Layered Network Architecture
This kind of network uses hundreds of sensor nodes as well as a base
station. Here the arrangement of network nodes can be done into
concentric layers. It comprises five layers as well as 3 cross layers which
include the following.

The five layers in the architecture are:

 Application Layer
 Transport Layer
 Network Layer
 Data Link Layer
 Physical Layer
The three cross layers include the following:

 Power Management Plane

 Mobility Management Plane
 Task Management Plane
These three cross layers are mainly used for controlling the network as well
as to make the sensors function as one in order to enhance the overall
network efficiency. The above mentioned five layers of WSN are discussed
below.
 Wireless Sensor Network
Architecture
Application Layer
The application layer is liable for traffic management and offers software for
numerous applications that convert the data in a clear form to find positive
information. Sensor networks arranged in numerous applications in
different fields such as agricultural, military, environment, medical, etc.

Transport Layer
The function of the transport layer is to deliver congestion avoidance and
reliability where a lot of protocols intended to offer this function are either
practical on the upstream. These protocols use dissimilar mechanisms for
loss recognition and loss recovery. The transport layer is exactly needed
when a system is planned to contact other networks.

Providing a reliable loss recovery is more energy-efficient and that is one of

the main reasons why TCP is not fit for WSN. In general, Transport layers
can be separated into Packet driven, Event-driven. There are some popular
protocols in the transport layer namely STCP (Sensor Transmission Control
Protocol), PORT (Price-Oriented Reliable Transport Protocol and PSFQ
(pump slow fetch quick).

Network Layer
The main function of the network layer is routing, it has a lot of tasks based
on the application, but actually, the main tasks are in the power conserving,
partial memory, buffers, and sensor don’t have a universal ID and have to
be self-organized.

The simple idea of the routing protocol is to explain a reliable lane and
redundant lanes, according to a convincing scale called a metric, which
varies from protocol to protocol. There are a lot of existing protocols for this
network layer, they can be separated into; flat routing and hierarchal
routing or can be separated into time-driven, query-driven & event-driven.

Data Link Layer

The data link layer is liable for multiplexing data frame detection, data
streams, MAC, & error control, confirm the reliability of point–point (or)
point– multipoint.

Physical Layer
The physical layer provides an edge for transferring a stream of bits above
the physical medium. This layer is responsible for the selection of
frequency, generation of a carrier frequency, signal detection, Modulation &
data encryption. IEEE 802.15.4 is suggested as typical for low rate
particular areas & wireless sensor networks with low cost, power
consumption, density, the range of communication to improve the battery
life. CSMA/CA is used to support star & peer to peer topology. There are
several versions of IEEE 802.15.4.V.

The main benefits of using this kind of architecture in WSN is that every
node involves simply in less-distance, low- power transmissions to the
neighboring nodes due to which power utilization is low as compared with
other kinds of sensor network architecture. This kind of network is scalable
as well as includes a high fault tolerance.

Clustered Network Architecture

In this kind of architecture, separately sensor nodes add into groups known
as clusters which depend on the “Leach Protocol” because it uses clusters.
The term ‘Leach Protocol’ stands for “Low Energy Adaptive Clustering
Hierarchy”. The main properties of this protocol mainly include the
following.
 Clustered Network Architecture
 This is a two-tier hierarchy clustering architecture.
 This distributed algorithm is used to arrange the sensor nodes into
groups, known as clusters.
 In every cluster which is formed separately, the head nodes of the
cluster will create the TDMA (Time-division multiple access) plans.
 It uses the Data Fusion concept so that it will make the network
energy efficient.
This kind of network architecture is extremely used due to the data fusion
property. In every cluster, every node can interact through the head of the
cluster to get the data. All the clusters will share their collected data toward
the base station. The formation of a cluster, as well as its head selection in
each cluster, is an independent as well as autonomous distributed method.

Design Issues of Wireless Sensor Network

Architecture
The design issues of wireless sensor network architecture mainly include
the following.

 Energy Consumption
 Localization
 Coverage
 Clocks
 Computation
 Cost of Production
 Design of Hardware
 Quality of Service
Energy Consumption
In WSN, power consumption is one of the main issues. As an energy
source, the battery is used by equipping with sensor nodes. The sensor
network is arranged within dangerous situations so it turns complicated for
changing otherwise recharging batteries. The energy consumption mainly
depends on the sensor nodes’ operations like communication, sensing &
data processing. Throughout communication, the energy consumption is
very high. So, energy consumption can be avoided at every layer by using
efficient routing protocols.

Localization
For the operation of the network, the basic, as well as critical problem, is
sensor localization. So sensor nodes are arranged in an ad-hoc manner so
they don’t know about their location. The difficulty of determining the
sensor’s physical location once they have been arranged is known as
localization. This difficulty can be resolved through GPS, beacon nodes,
localization based on proximity.

Coverage
The sensor nodes in the wireless sensor network utilize a coverage
algorithm for detecting data as well as transmit them to sink through the
routing algorithm. To cover the whole network, the sensor nodes should be
chosen. There efficient methods like least and highest exposure path
algorithms as well as coverage design protocol are recommended.

Clocks
In WSN, clock synchronization is a serious service. The main function of
this synchronization is to offer an ordinary timescale for the nodes of local
clocks within sensor networks. These clocks must be synchronized within
some applications like monitoring as well as tracking.

Computation
The computation can be defined as the sum of data that continues through
each node. The main issue within computation is that it must reduce the
utilization of resources. If the life span of the base station is more
dangerous, then data processing will be completed at each node before
data transmitting toward the base station. At every node, if we have some
resources then the whole computation should be done at the sink.

Production Cost
In WSN, the large number of sensor nodes is arranged. So if the single
node price is very high then the overall network price will also be high.
Ultimately, the price of each sensor node has to be kept less. So the price
of every sensor node within the wireless sensor network is a demanding
problem.

Hardware Design
When designing any sensor network’s hardware like power control, micro-
controller & communication unit must be energy-efficient. Its design can be
done in such a way that it uses low-energy.

Quality of Service
The quality of service or QoS is nothing but, the data must be distributed in
time. Because some of the real-time sensor-based applications mainly
depend on time. So if the data is not distributed on time toward the receiver
then the data will turn useless. In WSNs, there are different types of QoS
issues like network topology that may modify frequently as well as the
accessible state of information used for routing can be imprecise.

Structure of a Wireless Sensor Network

The structure of WSN mainly comprises various topologies used for radio
communications networks like a star, mesh, and hybrid star. These
topologies are discussed below in brief.

Star Network
The communication topology like a star network is used wherever only the
base station can transmit or receive a message toward remote nodes.
There is a number of nodes are available which are not allowed to transmit
messages to each other. The benefits of this network mainly comprise
simplicity, capable of keeping the power utilization of remote nodes to a
minimum.

It also lets communications with less latency among the base station as
well as a remote node. The main drawback of this network is that the base
station should be in the range of radio for all the separate nodes. It is not
robust like other networks because it depends on a single node to handle
the network.

Mesh Network
This kind of network permits to the transmission of the data from one node
to another within the network that is in the range of radio transmission. If a
node needs to transmit a message to another node and that is out of radio
communications range, then it can utilize a node like an intermediate to
send the message toward the preferred node.

The main benefit of a mesh network is scalability as well as redundancy.

When an individual node stops working, a remote node can converse to
any other type of node within the range, then forwards the message toward
the preferred location. Additionally, the network range is not automatically
restricted through the range among single nodes; it can extend simply by
adding a number of nodes to the system.

The main drawback of this kind of network is power utilization for the
network nodes that execute the communications like multi-hop are usually
higher than other nodes that don’t have this capacity of limiting the life of
battery frequently. Moreover, when the number of communication hops
increases toward a destination, then the time taken to send the message
will also increase, particularly if the low power process of the nodes is a
necessity.

Hybrid Star – Mesh Network

A hybrid among the two networks like star and mesh provides a strong and
flexible communications network while maintaining the power consumption
of wireless sensor nodes to a minimum. In this kind of network topology,
the sensor nodes with less power are not allowed to transmit the
messages.
This permits to maintenance least power utilization.

But, other network nodes are allowed with the capability of multi-hop by
allowing them to transmit messages from one node to another on the
network. Usually, the nodes with the multi-hop capacity have high power
and are frequently plugged into the mains line. This is the implemented
topology through the upcoming standard mesh networking called ZigBee.

Structure of a Wireless Sensor Node

The components used to make a wireless sensor node are different units
like sensing, processing, transceiver & power. It also includes additional
components that depend on an application like a power generator, a
location finding system & a mobilizer. Generally, sensing units include two
subunits namely ADCs as well as sensors. Here sensors generate analog
signals which can be changed to digital signals with the help of ADC, after
that it transmits to the processing unit.
Generally, this unit can be associated through a tiny storage unit to handle
the actions to make the sensor node work with the other nodes to achieve
the allocated sensing tasks. The sensor node can be connected to the
network with the help of a transceiver unit. In the sensor node, one of the
essential components is a sensor node. The power-units are supported
through power scavenge units like solar cells whereas the other subunits
depend on the application.

A wireless sensing nodes functional block diagram is shown above. These

modules give a versatile platform to deal with the requirements of wide
applications. For instance, based on the sensors to be arranged, the
replacement of signal conditioning block can be done. This permits to use
of different sensors along with the wireless sensing node. Likewise, the
radio link can be exchanged for a specified application.

Characteristics of Wireless Sensor Network

The characteristics of WSN include the following.

 The consumption of Power limits for nodes with batteries

 Capacity to handle node failures
 Some mobility of nodes and Heterogeneity of nodes
 Scalability to a large scale of distribution
 Capability to ensure strict environmental conditions
 Simple to use
 Cross-layer design
Advantages of Wireless Sensor Networks
The advantages of WSN include the following

 Network arrangements can be carried out without immovable

infrastructure.
 Apt for the non-reachable places like mountains, over the sea,
rural areas, and deep forests.
 Flexible if there is a casual situation when an additional
workstation is required.
 Execution pricing is inexpensive.
 It avoids plenty of wiring.
 It might provide accommodations for the new devices at any time.
 It can be opened by using centralized monitoring.
Wireless Sensor Network Applications
Wireless sensor networks may comprise numerous different types of
sensors like low sampling rate, seismic, magnetic, thermal, visual, infrared,
radar, and acoustic, which are clever to monitor a wide range of ambient
situations. Sensor nodes are used for constant sensing, event ID, event
detection & local control of actuators. The applications of wireless sensor
networks mainly include health, military, environmental, home, & other
commercial areas.

WSN Application
 Military Applications
 Health Applications
 Environmental Applications
 Home Applications
 Commercial Applications
 Area monitoring
 Health care monitoring
 Environmental/Earth sensings
 Air pollution monitoring
 Forest fire detection
 Landslide detection
 Water quality monitoring
 Industrial monitoring