A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Multihop clustering algorithm for load balancing in wireless sensor networks

The paper presents a new cluster based routing algorithm that exploits the redundancy properties of the sensor networks in order to address the traditional problem of load balancing and energy efficiency in the WSNs.The algorithm makes use of the nodes in a sensor network of which area coverage is covered by the neighbours of the nodes and mark them as temporary cluster heads. The algorithm then forms two layers of multi hop communication. The bottom layer which involves intra cluster communication and the top layer which involves inter cluster communication involving the temporary cluster heads. Performance studies indicate that the proposed algorithm solves effectively the problem of load balancing and is also more efficient in terms of energy consumption from Leach and the enhanced version of Leach