Wireless Sensor Networks: A Networking Perspective Review

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(More customer reviews)There has been a lot of research done on Wireless Sensor Networks and the editors of this book give us a timely [circa 2010] perspective on the field.
In each chapter we see big differences between a WSN and a traditional wired network of machines. The most significant is the low power on a sensor in a WSN. Often, sensors might be scattered over some region, where each sensor has a battery and the battery cannot be replaced or recharged. We also see that communication power typically is greater than computational power inside a sensor. So many algorithms in the book stress clever ways to reduce the amount of time that a sensor is transmitting or receiving.
Another approach is with a heterogeneous network of sensors and actors [WSAN]. The actors are nodes with more power, so that they can do more computing than a generic leaf sensor, and they can often have a greater communication range. This takes advantage of the situation where we have a dense sensor network, and sensors around some event of interest might have redundant data. An actor might only solicit data from a few sensors around the event, saving precious energy on the other sensors.
A protocol stack can be used for a WSN. But one interesting suggestion is that the very modularity of the protocol approach leads to inefficiency. Thus the idea of a cross layer design, where several protocol layers might be merged. One problem however arises if you want to simulate this. Existing network simulators that have been used for WSN invariably use a protocol stack. A completely new simulator might have to be coded to test a mooted cross layer design.
One slight disappointment about the book was the lack of actual case studies of military WSNs. These were only mentioned en passant. It would have been neat to get more details about actual military deployed WSNs, if such data are publicly available.

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Learn the fundamental concepts, major challenges, and effective solutions in wireless sensor networking
This book provides a comprehensive and systematic introduction to the fundamental concepts, major challenges, and effective solutions in wireless sensor networking (WSN). Distinguished from other books, it focuses on the networking aspects of WSNs and covers the most important networking issues, including network architecture design, medium access control, routing and data dissemination, node clustering, node localization, query processing, data aggregation, transport and quality of service, time synchronization, network security, and sensor network standards.
With contributions from internationally renowned researchers, Wireless Sensor Networks expertly strikes a balance between fundamental concepts and state-of-the-art technologies, providing readers with unprecedented insights into WSNs from a networking perspective. It is essential reading for a broad audience, including academic researchers, research engineers, and practitioners in industry. It is also suitable as a textbook or supplementary reading for electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science courses at the graduate level.

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