Current Trends in Wireless Sensor Network Design

Abstract

The self-organizing nature of sensor networks, their autonomous operation and potential architectural alternatives make them suitable for different data-centric applications. Their wider acceptance seems to be rising on the horizon. In this article, we present an overview of the current state of the art in the field of wireless sensor networks. We also present various open research issues and provide an insight about the latest developments that need to be explored in greater depth that could possibly make this emerging technological area more useful than ever.

This work has been supported by the Ohio Board of Regents’ Doctoral Enhancement Funds, Funds from Wright Patterson Airforce Base through the Wright Brothers Institute and the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-0013361.

Keywords:

• Data aggregation
• energy-aware design
• hierarchical topology
• middleware
• power management
• protocols
• query processing
• sensor networks
• self-organization
• topology control

Notes

This work has been supported by the Ohio Board of Regents’ Doctoral Enhancement Funds, Funds from Wright Patterson Airforce Base through the Wright Brothers Institute and the National Science Foundation under grant CCR-0013361.

32. IEEE Std 802.15.4-2003, Wireless medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications for low-rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs) (2003).