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Proceedings of 2014 RAECS UIET Panjab University Chandigarh, 06 – 08 March, 2014
978-1-4799-2291-8/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
A Review of sensor networks: Technologies and
applications
Hemraj Sharma
University Institute of Engg. and Technology
Panjab University
Chandigarh, India
sharmahemraj88@gmail.com
Sukesha Sharma
University Institute of Engg. and Technology
Panjab University
Chandigarh, India
er_sukesha@yahoo.com
Abstract— Sensing any change in the physical environment
and delivering this real time information about the system to the
remote station for analysis has created versatile applications.
With the research and development in the science and technology
new sophisticated wired and wireless technologies for sensing
have been developed with time. This paper presents an overview
of these technologies used for wired and wireless sensor
networks. For wireless sensor network some features of zigbee,
enOcean, wavenis, Z-wave, wifi and Bluetooth are discussed in
this paper. Brief discussion of different applications of the sensor
networks is also presented.
Keywords—applications; technologies; wired sensor network;
wireless sensor network.
I. INTRODUCTION
Sensor network is a group of nodes which gathers data
according to their specialty. The node contains the power
source, microprocessor, external memory, sensors, analog to
digital converter and transceivers. Microprocessors in the
nodes perform the necessary operation on data prior to send it
to the remote station. Microprocessor has limited internal
memory. So the external memory is also provided in the node
to store the sensing data. Sensors are the physical devices
which collects the environmental data as the analog signal.
Then this data is converted into the digital with the help of
analog to digital converter present in the node. Transceiver is
the device in the node which receives the control signal from
the sender and sends the operator data from the sensors to the
remote station.
Power source provide the energy (electricity) to the node
for its operation. This power source as a battery for the
wireless sensor nodes or through cable connection for the
wired sensor or the power can be generated with the some
energy harvesting modes like solar cell etc. Sensor networks
further can be divided into two types:
1. Wired sensor network
In the wired sensor networks power source is wired.
The power is continuously supplied to the node. Moreover the
data from /to transceiver is send/received using wired
Fig. 1 Block Diagram of wireless Sensor Node
communication channel. These sensor networks are highly
reliable and their applications are limited. Moreover they have
mesh network of the wires connecting to the network which
makes them complex to handle and increase their cost.
2. Wireless sensor networks
In wireless sensor network the nodes are not connected
with any wire. Transceivers wirelessly send /receive the data
and control signals to the control center or from the control
center. In wireless sensor networks communication channel is
the frequency spectrum. Moreover the power source in these
nodes is the battery. As these nodes are implemented in very
far areas, batteries are changed after a long time. Therefore
energy consumption issue is the main research topic for
wireless sensor networks. Now the data gathered at the field
location is transferred to the remote station through the
transceiver by the wireless channel. There data is processed
for the analysis and required actions are being taken. As
shown in Fig.1 energy can be provided by three ways (battery,
wire or energy harvesting module) to the sensor node. Data
gathered by the sender node is sent to the remote station
through wireless channel. After processing data at the remote
station action is taken according to the requirement.
In the wireless sensor networks, the parameters which
evaluate the performance of the network are packet delay,
reliability, fault tolerance, energy consumption etc. Preference
of these parameters changes from application to application.
II. TECHNOLOGIES
There are other different technologies which are used in the
wireless sensor networks .these are –zigbee ,z-wave ,wavenis
,wifi,EnOcean,Bluetooth,Insteon,x10 etc.
A. Zigbee
This technology is built on the IEEE 802.15.4 media
standard and this works from layer 3 to the application layer of
the ISO-OSI model [1]. Its working frequencies are 868 MHz,
915 MHz, and 2.4 GHz and low bit rate transmission 20kbps,
40kbps and 250kbps respectively. Moreover it is low cost
wireless network technology. It has short delay and provides
faster response. It need 15ms to wake up from sleeping mode
and only 30ms to access the network. For insurance of reliable
data transfer it uses dynamic routing protocol. Generally mesh
network topology is used for the interconnection of the nodes,
as in this there are at least two pathways to connect each node.
In mesh each node is self routed and able to connect to other
nodes if needed. A large number of nodes can use zigbee at the
same time. 65000 nodes can be supported at most in a zigbee
network. It has low power consumption. Two AA batteries can
be used for 6 month to 2 years duration in low power standby
mode [2]. Its low power consumption is due to the PSK
modulation techniques, increased sleeping time of the node and
use of EEMAC algorithm on the MAC layer [3]. Zigbee
operates up to a range 10 to 100 meter. There are three ways in
which security is provided by the zigbee technology. It uses
AES encryption for the high- level secure transfer of the data.
It also has option of no security setting and using access
control list. So these features of the zigbee technology provide
a great scope for its use.
B. EnOcean
It is a wireless network technology which has been
very successful in Europe. Its main focus is on the energy
efficiency .To achieve this it does not use the normal
communication reliability procedures like message
acknowledgement and CSMA. EnOcean resolve this issue
using very short messages which reduce the message collision
probability and hence save energy avoiding the repetition of
message several times. It is not a feature rich, able to handle
adhoc networks and not very complex as it is equipped with
the energy harvesting modules .Energy can be harvested from
environmental resources like solar energy, temperature
difference or vibration/motion. EnOcean uses direct media
access control (MAC) scheme [4].
C. Wavenis
It was made for ultra low power energy consumption
and long range transmission of small amount of data. It has
automated 2-way communication. It supports Asynchronous
or synchronous operation depending on network size and
application [5]. It has feature of easy network device setup.
Every device using wavenis technology support repeater
function upto 4 hops. Wavenis operates in license free ISM
bands .It has following regulatory standards.
1. 868 MHz (EU EN 300-220) with strict duty cycle
regulation.
2. 915 MHz (US FCC 15 247, 15-249) with mandatory signal
spreading.
3. 433 MHz with no duty cycle restriction.
Wavenis applications communicate at 19.2 Kbps [1].
D. X10
This protocol is used in smart homes and it is used for
wired sensor networks. It uses electrical power lines to
transmit message signals, incurs low cost and easy to install .It
also has less data transfer rate-20 bps. Moreover X10 is
inclined towards noise [6].
E. Insteon
It is the modification of the legacy X10 and is
backward compatible to X10. Insteon uses both radio
frequency signals and the home's existing electrical wiring as
the communication channel. It provides error detection and
automatic error correction of the data packet. In the mesh
network of the Insteon every device acts as a repeater-receives
and sends the every message to all other devices on the
network and they do not contain any routing tables. This
technology operates with frequency 131 kHz on power lines
and for wireless transmission radio frequencies used in US
and Europe is 915MHz and 868MHz respectively but
Radiofrequency used in Australia and New Zealand is
921MHz. It can support 16,777,216 maximum devices per
network. Its new feature is wireless communication [7].
F. Z-wave
It is a wireless communication standard designed for
remotely controlled applications in residential and light
commercial environments. Its speed is 40 kbps (915MHz) and
reach is up to 30 meter in air and reduced indoor. It is widely
adopted and uses 128-bit AES encryption for the security
purpose and avoids interference with Wifi, Bluetooth and
other systems that operate on crowded 2.4 GHz. It was
developed by Denis Startup called Zen-Sys that was acquired
by sigma designs in 2008 [1].
G. wifi
It is a popular wireless technology based on IEEE
802.11 standards and used in home networks. Speed can reach
from 11Mbps-300Mbps.Its adoption rate is extremely high
.Wifi can be less secure than the wired connections. For
security purpose it uses Wifi protected access 2(WPA2)
802.11i [1]. Wifi has high power consumption as the data rates
and range is high. Wireless access point using 802.11g and
802.11b has a range of 35 m in doors and 100m outdoors.
H. Bluetooth
It is short range, wireless technology and is basically
wire substitute. This technology is based on IEEE 802.15.1. It
is very efficient and processing bandwidth is 1000-3000Kbps.
It operates in the range 2400-2483.5 MHz and makes network
of maximum 7 nodes and network called piconet [2].
Brief comparison of typical wireless network
technologies is given in table I.
TABLE I. COMPARISON OF TYPICAL WIRELESS NETWORK
TECHNOLOGIES
Technologies
Zigbee
z
-wave bluetooth wavenis
Data rate 20,40,250kbps 40kbps 1000-
3000kbps
19.2kbps
Range (in
meter)
10-100m 30m,in open air 50m Significant
range
Application
Area
Monitoring
and control
Remote control
application
Wire
substitute
Remote
control
and data
monitoring
S
tandard IEEE 802.15.4 Proprietary
wireless
communication
standard
IEEE
802.15.1
Certified
ETS300-
220,
FCC15-247,
15-249
S
ecurity 128 bit AES
encryption
128 bit AES
encryption
SAFER+
Block
cipher
3DES, AES
128, RSA
III. APPLICATIONS
According to the specification of the sensors, area of
applications of sensor networks is very versatile. Most of the
population, at the present time is in the developing countries
and main income source in these countries is agriculture. With
the development of the technology in the past decades green
house management agriculture introduced to increase the farm
production efficiency and profitability by reducing unintended
effects on green house environment. The necessary parameters
like temperature, humidity and irrigation in the green house
can be known by the wireless technology zigbee at low cost.
zigbee module is used to continuously monitor the parameter
data of the green house and send to the remote station where it
is get operated on the LabView GUI Software and control
signal send back to the green house to maintain the parameter
value level [8].
Similar and extended functionality of the operations has
been described in [9]. In this, the data gathered is put on the
web portal and along with it the user feedbacks of the
products, future market trends and the knowledge seminar
from the experts, data stored in the database for the future use
has been included.
A wireless sensor network has been proposed with the
sensor which senses the pH value of the water of the river
[10]. In this monitoring areas are divided into sub areas like
area near water pump house(A), near factory industry(B), near
agricultural land(C) and near residential area(D). In each area
with the cluster of sensor nodes a head node is located. Sensor
nodes are deployed at the different depths of the river to
measure the water quality at other levels also. A Head node
from the respective clusters takes the data from other nodes
and sends it to the remote station for the processing. The
system in this uses zigbee communication to meet the low
power consumption requirements of the development
scenario. And in [11] the parameter under investigation
include temperature, phosphate, dissolved oxygen,
conductivity, pH, turbidity, and water level in the smartCoast
R&D project, co-founded by the Irish Marine Institute and
EDA.
In an application of WSN the avalanche conditions can
be identified in the respective areas before the actual loss by
this natural calamity [12]. In this system the sensor is made up
of the two or more elementary radiators. The radiators
belonging to the sensor are immersed in the snow one after
another. As the snow melts the water level in the snow
increases which increase the conductivity of the medium. And
after performing the required calculations the threshold value
for the danger alerts can be calculated.
WSN are also used to know the oilfields on the sea
floor or the seismic movement monitoring [13]. Effective
energy efficient node replacement and routing algorithms has
been discussed. The nodes are autonomous and use wireless
acoustic transmission for data transmission.
A system to monitor the temperature in cold chain
logistics in transportation has been made [14]. It prevents the
perishing of the food. The system used integration of the
wireless microcontroller JENNIC 5418 based on IEEE
802.15.4 standard with a thermocouple sensing converter
MAX31855. They used the wireless access points integrated
with the GPS and the 3G communication system.
In the medical fields, WSN provides the diagnostic
minority systems those do not involve puncturing the skin or
entering a body cavity. In the current research it is desired to
integrate more biosensors, electronics and wireless
technologies into low power sensing devices that can be worn
or directly planted into the patients. Other wireless
applications in the hospitals are to localize the assets and
streamlining hospital staff by integrating personal digital
assistant (PDA) or smart phone of doctors to the larger
hospital network. Smart surgical tools provide wireless
sensing and tracking for computer assisted surgery and
seamless use inter operatively [15].
IV. CONCLUSION
There are number of technologies of wired and wireless
sensor networks. These technologies are using the different
protocols and provide the different values for the performance
parameters. Zigbee technology provides considerable data rate
along with the low power consumption. EnOcean uses special
messages instead of CSMA protocol to reduce the energy
consumption. X10 and Insteon technologies can work on the
electrical power lines which make them suitable for home
automation. Wifi is high power consuming and high data rate
delivering technology. Its high power consumption makes it
inapplicable for wireless sensor node. Bluetooth is also a high
power consumption technology which provides high data rate
for shorter ranges. The main constraint of wireless sensor
networks is to operate on the lowest possible level of the
energy. This is because that the wireless nodes are deployed in
the field which are rarely visited or attended and more over
their battery replacement is costly.
Wireless sensor networks are used in the versatile
applications. These are being used in agriculture, home
automations, environmental condition monitoring, defense
areas, and medical field.
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