Architectural and operational tradeoffs in wireless sensor networks

摘要

Although touted as a revolutionary technology with a wide scope of application, the actual design and implementation of full, end-to-end wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has rarely been demonstrated. One of the primary factors holding back the field is that the capabilities of WSNs and realistic specifications of WSN applications are not well understood. Much research has been devoted to specific hardware, software, or algorithmic components of these networks with very little work having been done on full system implementation for real-world problems. The multitude of WSN components that have been developed result from different tradeoffs made among the parameters governing WSN systems. This paper introduces and analyzes these governing parameters and how tradeoffs are made among them. Ultimately, a matching metric presented helps WSN designers use specifications on these parameters to find and integrate appropriate WSN components for implementing real-world WSN solutions.