UNIT-I

WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS & ARCHITECTURES

1.1 KEY DEFINITIONS OF SENSOR NETWORKS:

Definition: A Sensor Network is composed of a large number of sensor nodes, which are tightly positioned
either inside the phenomenon or very close to it.
Sensor networks have the contribution from signal processing, networking and protocols, databases and
information management, distributed algorithms, and embedded systems and architecture.
A wireless sensor network (WSN) can be defined as a network of low-size and low-complex devices
denoted as nodes that can sense the environment and communicate the information gathered from the
monitored field through wireless links.
The following are the Key terms and concepts that will be used in sensor network development
techniques.
• Sensor: A transducer that converts a physical phenomenon such as heat, light, sound, or motion into
electrical or other signals that may be further operated by other apparatus.
• Sensor node: A basic unit in a sensor network, with on-board sensors, processor, memory, wireless modem,
and power supply. It is often abbreviated as node. When a node has only a single sensor on board, the node is
sometimes referred as a sensor.
• Network topology: A connectivity graph where nodes are sensor nodes and edges are communication links.
In a wireless network, the link represents a one-hop connection, and the neighbors of a node are those within
the radio range of the node.
• Routing: The process of determining a network path from a packet source node to its destination.
• Date-centric: Approaches that name, route, or access a piece of data via properties, such as physical
location, that are external to a communication network. This is to be contrasted with addresscentric
approaches which use logical properties of nodes related to the network structure.
• Geographic routing: Routing of data based on geographical features such as locations or regions. This is an
example of datecentric networking.
• In-network: A style of processing in which the data is processed and combined near where the data is
generated.
• Collaborative processing: Sensors cooperatively processing data from multiple sources in order to serve a
high-level task. This typically requires communication among a set of nodes.
• State: A snapshot about a physical environment (e.g., the number of signal sources, their locations or spatial
extent, speed of movement), or a snapshot of the system itself (e.g.,the network state).
• Uncertainty: A condition of the information caused by noise in sensor measurements, or lack of knowledge
in models. The uncertainty affects the system‘s ability to estimate the state accurately and must be carefully
modeled. Because of the ubiquity of uncertainty in the data, many sensor network estimation problems are
cast in a statistical framework. For example, one may use a covariance matrix to characterize the uncertainty
in a Gaussian-like process or more general probability distributions for non-Gaussian processes.
• Task: Either high-level system tasks which may include sensing, communication, processing, and resource
allocation, or application tasks which may include detection, classification, localization, or tracking.

• Detection: The process of discovering the existence of a physical phenomenon. A threshold- based detector
may flag a detection whenever the signature of a physical phenomenon is determined to be significant enough
compared with the threshold.
• Classification: The assignment of class labels to a set of physical phenomena being observed.
• Localization and tracking: The estimation of the state of a physical entity such as a physical phenomenon or
a sensor node from a set of measurements. Tracking produces a series of estimates over time.
• Value of information or information utility: A mapping of data to a scalar number, in the context of the
overall system task and knowledge. For example, information utility of a piece of sensor data may be
characterized by its relevance to an estimation task at hand and computed by a mutual information function.
• Resource: Resources include sensors, communication links, processors, on-board memory, and node energy
reserves. Resource allocation assigns resources to tasks, typically optimizing some performance objective.
• Sensor tasking: The assignment of sensors to a particular task and the control of sensor state (e.g., on/off,
pan/tilt) for accomplishing the task.
• Node services: Services such as time synchronization and node localization that enable applications to
discover properties of a node and the nodes to organize themselves into a useful network.
• Data storage: Sensor information is stored, indexed, and accessed by applications. Storage may be local to
the node where the data is generated, load-balanced across a network, or anchored at a few points
(warehouses).
• Embedded operating system (OS): The run-time system support for sensor network applications. An
embedded OS typically provides an abstraction of system resources and a set of utilities.
• System performance goal: The abstract characterization of system properties. Examples include scalability,
robustness, and network longevity, each of which may be measured by a set of evaluation metrics.
• Evaluation metric: A measurable quantity that describes how well the system is performing on some
absolute scale. Examples include packet loss (system), network dwell time (system), track loss (application),
false alarm rate (application), probability of correct association (application), location error (application), or
processing latency (application/system). An evaluation method is a process for comparing the value of
applying the metrics on an experimental system with that of some other benchmark system.

1.2 ADVANTAGES OF SENSOR NETWORKS:

Networked sensing offers unique advantages over traditional centralized approaches. Dense/ compressed
networks of distributed communicating sensors can improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) by reducing average
distances from sensor to source of signal, or target. Increased energy efficiency in communications is enabled
by the multi-hop topology of the network. A decentralized sensing system is inherently more strong against
individual sensor node or link failures, because of redundancy in the network.
1.2.1 Energy Advantage:
Because of the unique attenuation characteristics of radio-frequency (RF) signals, a multi-hop RF network
provides a significant energy saving over a single-hop network for the same distance. Consider the following
simple example of an N-hop network. Assume the overall distance for transmission is Nr, where r is the one-
hop distance. The minimum receiving power at a node for a given transmission error rate is Preceive, and the
power at a transmission node is

Psend. Then, the RF attenuation model near the ground is given by ∝ , where r is

the transmission distance and α is the RF attenuation exponent. Due to multipath and other interference
effects, α Therefore, the power advantage of an N-hop transmission versus a single-hop transmission over the
same distance Nr is =---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1)

Figure 1.1 illustrates the power attenuation for the multi-hop and single-hop networks. A larger N gives a
larger power saving due to the consideration of RF energy alone. However, this analysis ignores the power
usage by other components of an RF circuitry. Using more nodes increases not only the cost, but also the
power consumption of these other RF components. In practice, an optimal design seeks to balance the two
conflicting factors for an overall cost and energy efficiency. Latency and robustness considerations may also

is typically in the range of 2 to 5. Equivalently, .

argue against an unduly large number of relay nodes.
Figure 1.1: The power advantage of using a multi-hop RF communication over a distance of Nr

1.2.2 Detection Advantage:

Each sensor has a finite sensing range, determined by the noise floor at the sensor.A denser sensor field
improves the odds of detecting a signal source within the range. Once a signal source is inside the sensing
range of a sensor, further increasing the sensor density decreases the average distance from a sensor to the
signal source, hence improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Let us consider the acoustic sensing case in a
two-dimensional plane, where the

acoustic power received at a distance r is ∝ , which assumes an inverse distance

squared attenuation. The SNR is given by

10log 10log 10log 20log r ----------------------------- (2)

Increasing the sensor density by a factor of k reduces the average distance to a target by a factor of Thus, the
SNR advantage of the denser sensor network is

20log 10log k ---------------------------- (3)

Hence, an increase in sensor density by a factor of k improves the SNR at a sensor by 10 log k
db.

1.3 UNIQUE CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES:

1.3.1 Constraints: A sensor network has a unique set of resource constraints problems such as finite on-board
battery power and limited network communication bandwidth. A sensor network consists of circulated self-
governing sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions. WSN consist of an array of sensors, each
sensor network node has typically several parts such as radio, transceiver, antenna and microcontroller. A
Base station links the sensor network to another network to advertise the data sensed for future processing.
Each sensor
node communicates wirelessly with a few other local nodes within its radio communication range. Sensor
networks extend the existing Internet deep into the physical environment.
One of the biggest Constraint/problem of sensor network is power consumption. To solve this issue
two methods are defined. First method is to introduce aggregation points(An aggregation is a collection, or
the gathering of things together). This reduces total number of messages exchanged between nodes and saves
some energy. Usually aggregation points are ordinary nodes that receive data from neighbouring nodes,
execute processing and then forward the filtered data to next hop.
Real-time is a very important constraint in WSNs, because real-world conditions can introduce
explicit or implicit time constraints. These networks are supposed to sense signals in the environment, and
concepts like ―data freshness‖ are important in its applications. This way, in some application, time-
based/temporal validity in data collect by nodes can expire very quickly.

1.3.2 Challenges: The challenges we face in designing sensor network systems and applications include
Limited hardware, Limited support for networking, Limited support for software development.
• Limited hardware: Each node has limited processing, storage, and communication capabilities, and
limited energy supply and bandwidth.
• Limited support for networking: The network is peer-to-peer, with a mesh topology and dynamic,
mobile, and unreliable connectivity. There are no universal routing protocols or central registry services. Each
node acts both as a router and as an application host.
• Limited support for software development: The tasks are typically real-time and massively
distributed, involve dynamic teamwork among nodes, and must handle multiple competing events. Global
properties can be specified only via local instructions. Because of the coupling between applications and
system layers, the software architecture must be codesigned with the information processing architecture

1.4. DRIVING APPLICATIONS:

Sensor networks may consist of many different types of sensors such as magnetic, thermal, visual, seismic,
infrared and radar, which are able to monitor a wide variety of conditions. These sensor nodes can be put for
continuous sensing, location sensing, motion sensing and event detection. The idea of micro-sensing and
wireless connection of these sensor nodes promises many new application areas. A few examples of their
applications are as follows:

A. Area monitoring applications

Area monitoring is a very common application of WSNs. In area monitoring, the WSN is deployed over a
region where some physical activity or phenomenon is to be monitored. When the sensors detect the event
being monitored (sound, vibration), the event is reported to the base station, which then takes appropriate
action (e.g., send a message on the internet or to a satellite). Similarly, wireless sensor networks can be
deployed in security systems to detect motion of the unwanted, traffic control system to detect the presence of
high-speed vehicles. Also WSNs finds huge application in military area for battleeld surveillance, monitoring
friendly forces, equipment and ammunition, reconnaissance of opposing forces and terrain, targeting and
battle damage assessment .
B. Environmental applications
A few environmental applications of sensor networks include forest fire detection, green house monitoring,
landslide detection, air pollution detection and flood detection. They can also be used for tracking the
movement of insects, birds and small animals, planetary exploration, monitoring conditions that affect crops
and livestock and facilitating irrigation.
C. Health applications
Some of the health applications for sensor networks are providing interfaces for the disabled, integrated
patient monitoring, diagnostics, drug administration in hospitals, monitoring the movements and internal
processes of insects or other small animals, telemonitoring of human physiological data, and tracking and
monitoring doctors and patients inside a hospital.

D. Industrial applications
WSNs are now widely used in industries, for example in machinery condition-based maintenance. Previously
inaccessible locations, rotating machinery, hazardous or restricted areas, and mobile assets can now be
reached with wireless sensors. They can also be used to measure and monitor the water levels within all
ground wells and monitor leachate accumulation and removal.

E. Other applications
Sensor networks now find huge application in our day-to-day appliances like vacuum cleaners, micro-wave
ovens, VCRs and refrigerators. Other commercial applications includes constructing smart oce spaces,
monitoring product quality, managing inventory, factory instrumentation and many more.

1.5 ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS:

Building such wireless sensor networks has only become possible with some fundamental advances in
enabling technologies.
First technology is the miniaturization of hardware. Smaller feature sizes in chips have driven down
the power consumption of the basic components of a sensor node to a level that the constructions of WSNs
can be planned. This is particularly relevant to microcontrollers and memory chips and the radio modems
which are responsible for wireless communication have become much more energy efficient. Reduced chip
size and improved energy efficiency is accompanied by reduced cost.

Figure 1.2: Enabling Technologies

Second one is processing and communication and the actual sensing equipment is the third relevant
technology. Here, however, it is difficult to generalize because of the vast range of possible sensors.
 These three basic parts of a sensor node have to accompanied by power supply. This requires,
depending on application, high capacity batteries that last for long times, that is, have only a negligible self-
discharge rate, and that can efficiently provide small amounts of current. Ideally, a sensor node also has a
device for energy scavenging, recharging the battery with energy gathered from the environment – solar cells
or vibration-based power generation are conceivable options. Such a concept requires the battery to be
efficiently chargeable with small
amounts of current, which is not a standard ability. Both batteries and energy scavenging are still objects of
ongoing research.
The counterpart to the basic hardware technologies is software. This software architecture on a single
node has to be extended to a network architecture, where the division of tasks between nodes, not only on a
single node, becomes the relevant question-for example, how to structure interfaces for application
programmers. The third part to solve then is the question of how to design appropriate communication
protocols.

SINGLE-NODE ARCHITECTURE:

1.6 HARDWARE COMPONENTS: Choosing the hardware components for a wireless sensor node,
obviously the applications has to consider size, costs, and energy consumption of the nodes. A basic sensor
node comprises five main components such as Controller, Memory, Sensors and Actuators, Communication
devices and Power supply Unit.

Figure 1.3: Sensor node Hardware components

1.6.1 Controller: A controller to process all the relevant data, capable of executing arbitrary code. The
controller is the core of a wireless sensor node. It collects data from the sensors, processes this data, decides
when and where to send it, receives data from other sensor nodes, and decides on the actuator‘s behavior. It
has to execute various programs, ranging from time- critical signal processing and communication protocols
to application programs; it is the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of the node.
For General-purpose processors applications microcontrollers are used. These are highly
overpowered, and their energy consumption is excessive. These are used in embedded systems. Some of the
key characteristics of microcontrollers are particularly suited to embedded systems are their flexibility in
connecting with other devices like sensors and they are also convenient in that they often have memory built
in.
A specialized case of programmable processors are Digital Signal Processors (DSPs). They are
specifically geared, with respect to their architecture and their instruction set, for processing large amounts of
vectorial data, as is typically the case in signal processing applications. In a wireless sensor node, such a DSP
could be used to process data coming from a simple analog, wireless communication device to extract a
digital data stream. In broadband wireless communication, DSPs are an appropriate and successfully used
platform.
An FPGA can be reprogrammed (or rather reconfigured) ―in the field‖ to adapt to a changing set of
requirements; however, this can take time and energy – it is not practical to reprogram an FPGA at the same
frequency as a microcontroller could change between different programs.
An ASIC is a specialized processor, custom designed for a given application such as, for example,
high-speed routers and switches. The typical trade-off here is loss of flexibility in return for a considerably
better energy efficiency and performance. On the other hand, where a microcontroller requires software
development, ASICs provide the same functionality in hardware, resulting in potentially more costly hardware
development.
Examples: Intel Strong ARM, Texas Instruments MSP 430, Atmel ATmega.
1.6.2 Memory: Some memory to store programs and intermediate data; usually, different types of memory
are used for programs and data. In WSN there is a need for Random Access Memory (RAM) to store
intermediate sensor readings, packets from other nodes, and so on. While RAM is fast, its main disadvantage
is that it loses its content if power supply is interrupted. Program code can be stored in Read-Only Memory
(ROM) or, more typically, in Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) or flash
memory (the later being similar to EEPROM but allowing data to be erased or written in blocks instead of
only a byte at a time). Flash memory can also serve as intermediate storage of data in case RAM is insufficient
or when the power supply of RAM should be shut down for some time.

1.6.3 Communication Device: Turning nodes into a network requires a device for sending and receiving
information over a wireless channel.
Choice of transmission medium: The communication device is used to exchange data between individual
nodes. In some cases, wired communication can actually be the method of choice and is frequently applied in
many sensor networks. The case of wireless communication is considerably more interesting because it
include radio frequencies. Radio Frequency (RF)- based communication is by far the most relevant one as it
best fits the requirements of most WSN applications.
Transceivers: For Communication, both transmitter and receiver are required in a sensor node to convert a bit
stream coming from a microcontroller and convert them to and from radio waves. For two tasks a combined
device called transceiver is used.
Transceiver structure has two parts as Radio Frequency (RF) front end and the baseband part.
1. The radio frequency front end performs analog signal processing in the actual radio frequency Band.
2. The baseband processor performs all signal processing in the digital domain and communicates with a

sensor node‘s processor or other digital circuitry.

Figure 1.4: RF front end
 The Power Amplifier (PA) accepts upconverted signals from the IF or baseband part and amplifies
them for transmission over the antenna.
 The Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) amplifies incoming signals up to levels suitable for further
processing without significantly reducing the SNR. The range of powers of the incoming signals
 varies from very weak signals from nodes close to the reception boundary to strong signals from
nearby nodes; this range can be up to 100 dB.
 Elements like local oscillators or voltage-controlled oscillators and mixers are used for frequency
conversion from the RF spectrum to intermediate frequencies or to the baseband. The incoming signal
at RF frequencies fRF is multiplied in a mixer with a fixed- frequency signal from the local oscillator
(frequency fLO). The resulting intermediate- frequency signal has frequency fLO − fRF. Depending
on the RF front end architecture, other elements like filters are also present.
Transceiver tasks and characteristics:
 Service to upper layer: A receiver has to offer certain services to the upper layers, most notably to the
Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. Sometimes, this service is packet oriented; sometimes, a
transceiver only provides a byte interface or even only a bit interface to the microcontroller.
 Power consumption and energy efficiency: The simplest interpretation of energy efficiency is the
energy required to transmit and receive a single bit.
 Carrier frequency and multiple channels: Transceivers are available for different carrier frequencies;
evidently, it must match application requirements and regulatory restrictions.
 State change times and energy: A transceiver can operate in different modes: sending or receiving, use
different channels, or be in different power-safe states.
 Data rates: Carrier frequency and used bandwidth together with modulation and coding determine the
gross data rate.
 Modulations: The transceivers typically support one or several of on/off-keying, ASK, FSK, or similar
modulations.
 Coding: Some transceivers allow various coding schemes to be selected.
 Transmission power control: Some transceivers can directly provide control over the transmission
power to be used; some require some external circuitry for that purpose. Usually, only a discrete
number of power levels are available from which the actual transmission power can be chosen.
Maximum output power is usually determined by regulations.
 Noise figure: The noise figure NF of an element is defined as the ratio of the Signal-to- Noise Ratio
(SNR) ratio SNRI at the input of the element to the SNR ratio SNRO at the element‘s output: NF= . It
describes the degradation of SNR due to the element‘s

operation and is typically given in dB: NF dB= SNRI dB − SNRO dB.

 Gain: The gain is the ratio of the output signal power to the input signal power and is typically given in
dB. Amplifiers with high gain are desirable to achieve good energy efficiency.
 Power efficiency: The efficiency of the radio front end is given as the ratio of the radiated power to the
overall power consumed by the front end; for a power amplifier, the efficiency describes the ratio of
the output signal‘s power to the power consumed by the overall power amplifier.
 Receiver sensitivity: The receiver sensitivity (given in dBm) specifies the minimum signal power at
the receiver needed to achieve a prescribed Eb/N0 or a prescribed bit/packet error rate.
 Range: The range of a transmitter is clear. The range is considered in absence of interference; it
evidently depends on the maximum transmission power, on the antenna characteristics.
 Blocking performance: The blocking performance of a receiver is its achieved bit error rate in the
presence of an interferer.
 Out of band emission: The inverse to adjacent channel suppression is the out of band emission of a
transmitter. To limit disturbance of other systems, or of the WSN itself in a multichannel setup, the
transmitter should produce as little as possible of transmission power outside of its prescribed
bandwidth, centered around the carrier frequency.
  Carrier sense and RSSI: In many medium access control protocols, sensing whether the wireless
channel, the carrier, is busy (another node is transmitting) is a critical information. The receiver has to
be able to provide that information. the signal strength at which an incoming data packet has been
received can provide useful information a receiver has to provide this information in the Received
Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI).
 Frequency stability: The frequency stability denotes the degree of variation from nominal center
frequencies when environmental conditions of oscillators like temperature or pressure change.
 Voltage range: Transceivers should operate reliably over a range of supply voltages.
Otherwise, inefficient voltage stabilization circuitry is required.

1.6.4 Sensors and actuators: The actual interface to the physical world: devices that can observe or control
physical parameters of the environment.
Sensors can be roughly categorized into three categories as
 Passive, omnidirectional sensors: These sensors can measure a physical quantity at the point of the
sensor node without actually manipulating the environment by active probing – in this sense, they are
passive. Moreover, some of these sensors actually are self-powered in the sense that they obtain the
energy they need from the environment – energy is only needed to amplify their analog signal.
 Passive, narrow-beam sensors These sensors are passive as well, but have a well- defined notion of
direction of measurement.
 Active sensors This last group of sensors actively probes the environment, for example, a sonar or
radar sensor or some types of seismic sensors, which generate shock waves by small explosions.
These are quite specific – triggering an explosion is certainly not a lightly undertaken action – and
require quite special attention.

Actuators: Actuators are just about as diverse as sensors, yet for the purposes of designing a WSN that
converts electrical signals into physical phenomenon.

1.6.5 Power supply: As usually no tethered power supply is available, some form of batteries are necessary
to provide energy. Sometimes, some form of recharging by obtaining energy from the environment is
available as well (e.g. solar cells). There are essentially two aspects: Storing energy and Energy scavenging.
Storing energy: Batteries
 Traditional batteries: The power source of a sensor node is a battery, either non- rechargeable
(―primary batteries‖) or, if an energy scavenging device is present on the node, also rechargeable
 (―secondary batteries‖).
TABLE 1.1: Energy densities for various primary and secondary battery types
Upon these batteries the requirements are
  Capacity: They should have high capacity at a small weight, small volume, and low price.

The main metric is energy per volume, J/cm3.

 Capacity under load: They should withstand various usage patterns as a sensor node can consume quite
different levels of power over time and actually draw high current in certain operation modes.
 Self-discharge: Their self-discharge should be low. Zinc-air batteries, for example, have only a very
short lifetime (on the order of weeks).
 Efficient recharging: Recharging should be efficient even at low and intermittently available recharge
power.
 Relaxation: Their relaxation effect – the seeming self-recharging of an empty or almost empty battery
when no current is drawn from it, based on chemical diffusion processes within the cell – should be
clearly understood. Battery lifetime and usable capacity is considerably extended if this effect is
leveraged.
 DC–DC Conversion: Unfortunately, batteries alone are not sufficient as a direct power source for a
sensor node. One typical problem is the reduction of a battery‘s voltage as its capacity drops. A DC –
DC converter can be used to overcome this problem by regulating the voltage delivered to the node‘s
circuitry. To ensure a constant voltage even though the battery‘s supply voltage drops, the DC – DC
converter has to draw increasingly higher current from the battery when the battery is already
becoming weak, speeding up battery death. The DC – DC converter does consume energy for its own
operation, reducing overall efficiency.

Energy scavenging: Depending on application, high capacity batteries that last for long times, that is, have
only a negligible self-discharge rate, and that can efficiently provide small amounts of current. Ideally, a
sensor node also has a device for energy scavenging, recharging the battery with energy gathered from the
environment – solar cells or vibration-based power generation are conceivable options.
 Photovoltaics: The well-known solar cells can be used to power sensor nodes. The available power
depends on whether nodes are used outdoors or indoors, and on time of day and whether for outdoor
usage. The resulting power is somewhere between 10 μW/cm2 indoors and 15 mW/cm2 outdoors.
Single cells achieve a fairly stable output voltage of about 0.6 V (and have therefore to be used in
series) as long as the drawn current does not exceed a critical threshold, which depends on the light
intensity. Hence, solar cells are usually used to recharge secondary batteries.
 Temperature gradients: Differences in temperature can be directly converted to electrical energy.
 Vibrations: One almost pervasive form of mechanical energy is vibrations: walls or windows in
buildings are resonating with cars or trucks passing in the streets, machinery often has low frequency
vibrations. both amplitude and frequency of the vibration and ranges from about 0.1 μW/cm3 up to
10, 000 μW/cm3 for some extreme cases. Converting vibrations to electrical energy can be undertaken
by various means, based on electromagnetic, electrostatic, or piezoelectric principles.
 Pressure variations: Somewhat akin to vibrations, a variation of pressure can also be used as a power
source.
 Flow of air/liquid: Another often-used power source is the flow of air or liquid in wind mills or
turbines. The challenge here is again the miniaturization, but some of the work on millimeter scale
MEMS gas turbines might be reusable.
 Figure 1.5 A MEMS device for converting vibrations to electrical energy, based on a variable
capacitor

TABLE 1.2: Comparison of energy sources 1.7

ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF SENSOR NODES:
In previous section we discussed about energy supply for a sensor node through batteries that have
small capacity, and recharging by energy scavenging is complicated and volatile. Hence, the energy
consumption of a sensor node must be tightly controlled. The main consumers of energy are the controller, the
radio front ends, the memory, and type of the sensors. One method to reduce power consumption of these
components is designing low- power chips, it is the best starting point for an energy-efficient sensor node. But
any advantages gained by such designs can easily be squandered/ wasted when the components are improperly
operated. Second method for energy efficiency in wireless sensor node is reduced functionality by using
multiple states of operation with reduced energy consumption. These modes can be introduced for all
components of a sensor node, in particular, for controller, radio front end, memory, and sensors.
1.7.1 Microcontroller energy consumption: For a controller, typical states are ―active‖, ―idle‖, and
―sleep‖. A radio modem could turn transmitter, receiver, or both on or off. At time t1, the microcontroller is to
be put into sleep mode should be taken to reduce power consumption from Pactive to Psleep. If it remains
active and the next event occurs at time tevent, then a total energy is Eactive = Pactive (tevent − t1). On the
other hand, requires a time τdown until sleep mode has been reached. Let the average power consumption
during this phase is (Pactive + Psleep)/2. Then, Psleep is consumed until tevent. The energy saving is given by
 Esaved =(tevent − t1)Pactive − (τdown (Pactive + Psleep)/2 +(tevent − t1 − τdown )Psleep) ----- (4)
Once the event to be processed occurs, however, an additional overhead of Eoverhead
= τUp (Pactive + Psleep)/2 ---------------------------------- (5)
 Figure 1.6 Energy savings and overheads for sleep modes
Switching to a sleep mode is only beneficial if Eoverhead < Esaved or, equivalently, if the time to the next
event is sufficiently large: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (6)

Examples:
Intel StrongARM
The Intel StrongARM provides three sleep modes:
 In normal mode, all parts of the processor are fully powered. Power consumption is up to 400 mW.
 In idle mode, clocks to the CPU are stopped; clocks that pertain to peripherals are active. Any
interrupt will cause return to normal mode. Power consumption is up to 100 mW.
 In sleep mode, only the real-time clock remains active. Wakeup occurs after a timer interrupt and
takes up to 160 ms. Power consumption is up to 50 μW.
Texas Instruments MSP 430
The MSP430 family features a wider range of operation modes: One fully operational mode, which consumes
about 1.2 mW (all power values given at 1 MHz and 3 V). There are four sleep modes in total. The deepest
sleep mode, LPM4, only consumes 0.3 μW, but the controller is only woken up by external interrupts in this
mode. In the next higher mode, LPM3, a clock is also till running, which can be used for scheduled wake
ups, and still consumes only about 6 μW. Atmel ATmega
The Atmel ATmega 128L has six different modes of power consumption, which are in principle similar to
the MSP 430 but differ in some details. Its power consumption varies between 6 mW and 15 mW in idle and
active modes and is about 75 μW in power-down modes.

1.7.2 Memory energy consumption: The most relevant kinds of memory are on-chip memory and FLASH
memory. Off-chip RAM is rarely used. In fact, the power needed to drive on-chip memory is usually included
in the power consumption numbers given for the controllers. Hence, the most relevant part is FLASH
memory. In fact, the construction and usage of FLASH memory can heavily influence node lifetime. The
relevant metrics are the read and write times and energy consumption. Read times and read energy
consumption tend to be quite similar between different types of FLASH memory. Energy consumption
necessary for reading and writing to the Flash memory is used on the Mica nodes. Hence, writing to FLASH
memory can be a time- and energy-consuming task that is best avoided if somehow possible.

1.7.3 Radio transceivers energy consumption: A radio transceiver has essentially two tasks: transmitting
and receiving data between a pair of nodes. Similar to microcontrollers, radio transceivers can operate in
different modes, the simplest ones are being turned on or turned off. To accommodate the necessary low total
energy consumption, the transceivers should be turned off most of the time and only be activated when
necessary – they work at a low duty cycle.
The energy consumed by a transmitter is due to two sources one part is due to RF signal generation,
which mostly depends on chosen modulation and target distance. Second part is due to electronic components
necessary for frequency synthesis, frequency conversion, filters, and so on. The transmitted power is
generated by the amplifier of a transmitter. Its own power
consumption Pamp depends on its architecture Pamp = αamp + βampPtx. where αamp and βamp are constants
depending on process technology and amplifier architecture. The energy to transmit a packet n-bits long
(including all headers) then depends on how long it takes to send the packet, determined by the nominal bit
rate R and the coding rate Rcode, and on the total consumed power during transmission.

--------- (7)
Similar to the transmitter, the receiver can be either turned off or turned on. While being turned on, it
can either actively receive a packet or can be idle, observing the channel and ready to receive. Evidently, the
power consumption while it is turned off is negligible. Even the difference between idling and actually
receiving is very small and can, for most purposes, be assumed to be zero. To elucidate, the energy Ercvd
required to receive a packet has a startup component TstartPstart similar to the transmission case when the
receiver had been turned off (startup times are considered equal for transmission and receiving here); it also
has a component that is proportional to the packet time . During this time of actual reception,

receiver circuitry has to be powered up, requiring a (more or less constant) power of PrxElec.

------------ (8)
1.7.4 Power consumption of sensor and actuators:
Providing any guidelines about the power consumption of the actual sensors and actuators is impossible
because of the wide variety of these devices. For example, passive light or temperature sensors – the power
consumption can possibly be ignored in comparison to other devices on a wireless node. For others, active
devices like sonar( A measuring instrument that sends out an acoustic pulse in water and measures distances in
terms of time for the echo of the pulse to return), power consumption can be quite considerable in the
dimensioning of power sources on the sensor node, not to overstress batteries.

1.8 OPERATING SYSTEMS AND EXECUTION ENVIRONMENTS:

1.8.1 Embedded operating systems:

 An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer
hardware and software resources and provides common services for
computer programs.
 For hardware functions such as input and output and memory
allocation, the operating system acts as an intermediary between
programs and the computer hardware.
 An embedded system is some combination of computer hardware and
software, either fixed in capability or programmable, that is
specifically designed for a particular function.
 Embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded
computer systems. They are able to operate with a limited number of
 resources. They are very compact and
extremely efficient by design. Figure 1.7 Operating
Systems
1.8.2 TinyOS:
 TinyOS is an open-source, flexible and application-specific operating system for wireless sensor
networks.
 Wireless sensor network consists of a large number of tiny and low-power nodes, each of which
executes simultaneous and reactive programs that must work with strict memory and power
constraints.
  TinyOS meets these challenges and has become the platform of choice for sensor network such as
limited resources and low-power operation.
 Salient features of TinyOS are
 A simple event-based concurrency model and split-phase operations that influence the
development phases and techniques when writing application code.
 It has a component-based architecture which provides rapid innovation and implementation
while reducing code size as required by the difficult memory constraints inherent in wireless
sensor networks.
 TinyOS‘s component library includes network protocols, distributed services, sensor drivers,
and data acquisition tools.
 TinyOS‘s event-driven execution model enables fine grained power management, yet allows
the scheduling flexibility made necessary by the unpredictable nature of wireless
communication and physical world interfaces.

1.8.3 Programming paradigms and application programming interfaces:

 Concurrent Programming: Concurrent processing is a
computing model in which multiple processors execute
instructions simultaneously for better performance.
Concurrent means something that happens at the same time
as something else. Tasks are broken down into subtasks that
are then assigned to separate processors to perform
simultaneously, instead of sequentially as they would have
to be carried out by a single processor. Concurrent
processing is sometimes said to be synonymous with
parallel processing.

 Process-based concurrency: Most modern, general-

purpose operating systems support concurrent (seemingly
parallel) execution of multiple processes on a single CPU.
Using processes you are forced to deal with communication
through messages, which is the Erlang(A unit of traffic
intensity in telephone system) way of doing
communication. Data is not shared, so there is no risk of
data corruption. Fault-tolerance and scalability is the main
advantages of using processes vs. threads. Another
advantage of processes is that they can crash and you are
perfectly ok with that, because you just restart them (even
across network hosts). If thread crashes, it may crash the
entire process, which may bring down your entire
application.
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 Event-based programming: In
computer programming, event-driven
programming is a programming paradigm in
which the flow of the program is
determined by events such as user actions
(mouse clicks, key presses), sensor
outputs, or messages from other
programs/threads. Event-driven

15
 programming is the dominant paradigm used in Graphical User Interfaces (GUI-type of user interface
that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons) and other applications.
The system essentially waits for any event to happen, where an event typically can be the availability
of data from a sensor, the arrival of a packet, or the expiration of a timer. Such an event is then
handled by a short sequence of instructions that only stores the fact that this event has occurred and
stores the necessary information.

 Interfaces to the operating system: A boundary across which two independent systems meet and act
on or communicate with each other. In computer technology, there are several types of interfaces.
User interface - the keyboard, mouse, menus of a computer system. The user interface allows the user
to communicate with the operating system. Stands for "Application Programming Interface." An API
is a set of commands, functions, protocols, and objects (wireless links, nodes) that programmers can
use to create software or interact with an external system (sensors, actuators, transceivers). It provides
developers with standard commands for performing common operations so they do not have to write
the code from scratch.

1.8.4 Structure of operating system and protocol stack: The traditional approach to communication
protocol structuring is to use layering: individual protocols are stacked on top of each other, each layer only
using functions of the layer directly. This layered approach has great benefits in keeping the entire protocol
stack manageable, in containing complexity, and in promoting modularity and reuse. For the purposes of a
WSN, however, it is not clear whether such a strictly layered approach will serve. A protocol stack refers to a
group of protocols that are running concurrently that are employed for the implementation of network protocol
suite. The protocols in a stack determine the interconnectivity rules for a layered network model such as in the
OSI or TCP/IP models.

1.8.5 Dynamic energy and power management: Switching individual components into various sleep states
or reducing their performance by scaling down frequency and supply voltage and selecting particular
modulation and coding are prominent examples for improving energy efficiency. To control these
possibilities, decisions have to be made by the operating system, by the protocol stack, or potentially by an
application when to switch into one of these states. Dynamic Power Management (DPM) on a system level is
the problem at hand. One of the complicating factors to DPM is the energy and time required for the transition
of a component between any two states. If these factors were negligible, clearly it would be optimal to always
& immediately go into the mode with the lowest power consumption possible.

NETWORK ARCHITECTURE: It introduces the basic principles of turning individual sensor nodes into a
wireless sensor network. In this optimization goals of how a network should function are discussed as

 Sensor network scenarios

 Optimization goals and figures of merit
 Gateway concepts
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