Ultra-Low Power Wirel ess Sensor Networks: Overview of Applications , Design Requirements and Challenges

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have received significant attention from various researchers in terms of its architecture, design, challenges and supporting technologies, and so on. Also, their applications to different aspect such as structural health monitoring, health care, precision agriculture, intelligent transport systems have been reported. Though, some authors have reviewed different aspects of wireless sensor nodes, including applications, this paper presents a short survey of selected literature from a pool of articles reporting application cases of ultra-low power WSNs published in 2010- 2017. In this paper, specific design requirements for using ultra-low power sensor nodes were highlighted. In addition, existing solutions to challenges encountered when using WSNs for the selected applications were examined. This short survey will help readers and practitioners with scholarly resource needed for understanding the state-of-the-art in ultra-low power wireless sensor applications and offers insight into areas for further research. It will also help researchers to become aware of potential collaborators in future works involving WSNs