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

Overlapping Multi-hop Clustering for Wireless Sensor Networks

Clustering is a standard approach for achieving efficient and scalable performance in wireless sensor networks. Traditionally, clustering algorithms aim at generating a number of disjoint clusters that satisfy some criteria. In this paper, we formulate a novel clustering problem that aims at generating overlapping multi-hop clusters. Overlapping clusters are useful in many sensor network applications, including inter-cluster routing, node localization, and time synchronization protocols. We also propose a randomized, distributed multi-hop clustering algorithm (KOCA) for solving the overlapping clustering problem. KOCA aims at generating connected overlapping clusters that cover the entire sensor network with a specific average overlapping degree. Through analysis and simulation experiments we show how to select the different values of the parameters to achieve the clustering process objectives. Moreover, the results show that KOCA produces approximately equal-sized clusters, which allows distributing the load evenly over different clusters. In addition, KOCA is scalable; the clustering formation terminates in a constant time regardless of the network size

A Critical Review on Energy-Efficient Medium Access Control for Wireless and Mobile Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network (WSN) has garnered remarkable attention due to its wide supports for plenty of applications such as, health systems; military based applications, environmental monitoring, and tactical system. In ContentionBased Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols related to the energy consumption. In this paper, a combative review of energy consumption in Contention-Based MAC protocols was provided. Furthermore, a general comparison that stated the strengths and drawbacks with every utilized technique was offered. The main aim of this paper is to assist the researcher to choose the right protocol for developing purpose or further investigation regarding the performance

Survey of Inter-satellite Communication for Small Satellite Systems: Physical Layer to Network Layer View

Small satellite systems enable whole new class of missions for navigation, communications, remote sensing and scientific research for both civilian and military purposes. As individual spacecraft are limited by the size, mass and power constraints, mass-produced small satellites in large constellations or clusters could be useful in many science missions such as gravity mapping, tracking of forest fires, finding water resources, etc. Constellation of satellites provide improved spatial and temporal resolution of the target. Small satellite constellations contribute innovative applications by replacing a single asset with several very capable spacecraft which opens the door to new applications. With increasing levels of autonomy, there will be a need for remote communication networks to enable communication between spacecraft. These space based networks will need to configure and maintain dynamic routes, manage intermediate nodes, and reconfigure themselves to achieve mission objectives. Hence, inter-satellite communication is a key aspect when satellites fly in formation. In this paper, we present the various researches being conducted in the small satellite community for implementing inter-satellite communications based on the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. This paper also reviews the various design parameters applicable to the first three layers of the OSI model, i.e., physical, data link and network layer. Based on the survey, we also present a comprehensive list of design parameters useful for achieving inter-satellite communications for multiple small satellite missions. Specific topics include proposed solutions for some of the challenges faced by small satellite systems, enabling operations using a network of small satellites, and some examples of small satellite missions involving formation flying aspects.Comment: 51 pages, 21 Figures, 11 Tables, accepted in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

The Bus Goes Wireless: Routing-Free Data Collection with QoS Guarantees in Sensor Networks

Abstract—We present the low-power wireless bus (LWB), a new communication paradigm for QoS-aware data collection in lowpower sensor networks. The LWB maps all communication onto network floods by using Glossy, an efficient flooding architecture for wireless sensor networks. Therefore, unlike current solutions, the LWB requires no information of the network topology, and inherently supports networks with mobile nodes and multiple data sinks. A LWB prototype implemented in Contiki guarantees bounded end-to-end communication delay and duplicate-free, inorder packet delivery—key QoS requirements in many control and mission-critical applications. Experiments on two testbeds demonstrate that the LWB prototype outperforms state-of-theart data collection and link layer protocols, in terms of reliability and energy efficiency. For instance, we measure an average radio duty cycle of 1.69 % and an overall data yield of 99.97 % in a typical data collection scenario with 85 sensor nodes on Twist. I

An Energy Aware and Secure MAC Protocol for Tackling Denial of Sleep Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks which form part of the core for the Internet of Things consist of resource constrained sensors that are usually powered by batteries. Therefore, careful energy awareness is essential when working with these devices. Indeed,the introduction of security techniques such as authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data, can place higher energy load on the sensors. However, the absence of security protection c ould give room for energy drain attacks such as denial of sleep attacks which have a higher negative impact on the life span ( of the sensors than the presence of security features. This thesis, therefore, focuses on tackling denial of sleep attacks from two perspectives A security perspective and an energy efficiency perspective. The security perspective involves evaluating and ranking a number of security based techniques to curbing denial of sleep attacks. The energy efficiency perspective, on the other hand, involves exploring duty cycling and simulating three Media Access Control ( protocols Sensor MAC, Timeout MAC andTunableMAC under different network sizes and measuring different parameters such as the Received Signal Strength RSSI) and Link Quality Indicator ( Transmit power, throughput and energy efficiency Duty cycling happens to be one of the major techniques for conserving energy in wireless sensor networks and this research aims to answer questions with regards to the effect of duty cycles on the energy efficiency as well as the throughput of three duty cycle protocols Sensor MAC ( Timeout MAC ( and TunableMAC in addition to creating a novel MAC protocol that is also more resilient to denial of sleep a ttacks than existing protocols. The main contributions to knowledge from this thesis are the developed framework used for evaluation of existing denial of sleep attack solutions and the algorithms which fuel the other contribution to knowledge a newly developed protocol tested on the Castalia Simulator on the OMNET++ platform. The new protocol has been compared with existing protocols and has been found to have significant improvement in energy efficiency and also better resilience to denial of sleep at tacks Part of this research has been published Two conference publications in IEEE Explore and one workshop paper

Machine Learning in Wireless Sensor Networks: Algorithms, Strategies, and Applications

Wireless sensor networks monitor dynamic environments that change rapidly over time. This dynamic behavior is either caused by external factors or initiated by the system designers themselves. To adapt to such conditions, sensor networks often adopt machine learning techniques to eliminate the need for unnecessary redesign. Machine learning also inspires many practical solutions that maximize resource utilization and prolong the lifespan of the network. In this paper, we present an extensive literature review over the period 2002-2013 of machine learning methods that were used to address common issues in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The advantages and disadvantages of each proposed algorithm are evaluated against the corresponding problem. We also provide a comparative guide to aid WSN designers in developing suitable machine learning solutions for their specific application challenges.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial