Abstract
A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a system that consists of multiple sensing elements distributed spatially with a specific objective to measure different physical quantities and communicate those measurements between themselves and the central gateway.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
O.B. Akan and I.F. Akyildiz, “Event-to-sink reliable transport in wireless sensor networks,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 1003–1016, Oct. 2005.
I.F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam and E. Cayirci, “Wireless sensor networks: a survey,” Computer Networks, vol. 38, pp. 393–422, 2002.
E.H. Callaway, Wireless Sensor Networks: Architectures and Protocols, Auerbach Publications, New York, 2003.
M. Calleja, J. Tamayo, A. Johansson, P. Rasmussen, L. Lechuga, A. Boisen, “Polymeric cantilever arrays for biosensing applications,” Sensor Letters, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–5, 2003.
H.-M. Cheng, M.T. Ewe, R. Bashir, and G.T.-C. Chiu, “Modeling and control of piezoelectric cantilever beam micro-mirror and micro-laser arrays to reduce image banding in electro photographic processes”, Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, vol. 11, pp. 487–498, 2001.
C.Y. Chong and S.P. Kumar, “Sensor Networks: Evolution, Opportunities, and Challenges,” Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 91, no. 8, Aug. 2003, pp. 1247.
A. Dunkels, A.T. Voigt, J. Alonso, H. Ritter, and J. Schiller, “Connecting wireless sensor nets with TCP/IP networks,” Proc. Second International Conference on Wired/Wireless Internet Communications (WWIC2004), Frankfurt, Germany 2004.
V. Ekanayake, C. Kelly IV, and R. Monahar, “An ultra low-power processor for sensor networks,” ASPLOS’04, October 2004, Boston, MA, USA.
P.M. Evjen and G.E. Jonsrud, “Short range devices antennas,” Texas Instruments Application Notes, Available online: http://www.ti.com/lit/an/swra088/swra088.pdf (accessed September 2014).
J. Fraden, Handbook of Modern Sensors: Physics, Designs, and Applications, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2010.
M. Hempstead, M.J. Lyons, D. Brooks, and G.-Y. Wei, “Survey of hardware systems for wireless sensor networks,” Journal of Low Power Electronics, vol. no. 1, pp. 1–10, 2008.
A. Hulanicki, S. Geab, and F. Ingman, “Chemical sensors definitions and classification,” Pure and Applied Chemistry, vol. 63, no. 9, pp. 1247–1250, 1991.
Y.G. Iyer, S. Gandham and S. Venkatesan, “STCP: a generic transport layer protocol for wireless sensor networks,” Proc. 14th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, 2005, pp. 449–454.
H. Karl and A. Willig, Protocols and Architectures for Wireless Sensor Networks, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2005.
M. Kamarainen, M. Saukoski, M. Paavola, J.A.M. Jarvinen, M. Laiho, and K.A.I. Halonen, “A micropower front end for three-axis capacitive microaccelerometers,” IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurements, vol. 58, no. 10, October 2009.
B. Koren, “Photodiodes – tutorial,” SPIE OEMagazine, August 2001.
P. Lang, M.K. Baller, R. Berger, C. Gerber, J.K. Gimzewski, F.M. Battiston, P. Fornaro, J.P. Ramseyer, E. Meyer, H.J. Guntherodt, “An artificial nose based on a micromechanical cantilever array,” Anal. Chim. Acta, 1999, 393, pp. 59–65.
J.E. Lenz, “A review of magnetic sensors,” Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 78, no. 6, June 1990.
G. Mao, B.D.O. Anderson and B. Fidan, “Path loss exponent estimation for wireless sensor network localization,” Computer Networks, vol. 51, no. 10, pp. 2467–2483, July 2007.
Y. Nemirovsky, A. Nemirovsky, P. Muralt, and N. Setter, “Design of Novel Thin-Film Piezoelectric Accelerometer,” Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 56, no 3, September 1996.
F. Primdahl, “The fluxgate magnetometer,” Journal of Physics E: Scientific Instruments, vol. 12, no. 4, 1979.
R. Puers and S. Reyntjens, “Design and processing experiments of a new miniaturized capacitive triaxial accelerometer,” Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, vol. 68, no. 1–3, pp. 324-328, Jun 1998.
A. Rahman, A. El Saddik, and W. Gueaieb, “Wireless Sensor Network Transport Layer: State of the Art,” Sensors, Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, Springer-Verlag, vol. 21, 2008, pp. 221–245.
T. Seiyama, A. Kato, K. Fujiishi, M. Nagatani, “A new detector for gaseous components using semiconductive thin films,” Analytical Chemistry, vol. 34, no. 11, pp. 1502–1503, 1962.
S. Senturia, Microsystems Design, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, 2001.
M. Sheets, F. Burghardt, T. Karalar, J. Ammer, Y.H. Chee, and J. Rabaey, “A power-managed protocol processor for wireless sensor networks,” 2006 Symposium on VLSI, June 2006.
K. Sohraby, D. Minoli, and T. Znati, Wireless Sensor Networks: Technology, Protocols and Applications, John Wiley and Sons, 2007.
J.R. Stetter, W.R. Penrose, and S. Yao, “Sensors, chemical sensors, electrochemical sensors, and ECS,” Journal of The Electrochemical Society, vol. 150, no. 2, pp. S11-S16, 2003.
TinyOS Community Forum at http://www.tinyos.net/.
S.C. Thompson, “Tutorial on microphone technologies for directional hearing aids,” The Hearing Journal, vol. 56, no. 11, November 2003.
M. Tomic, P.T. Sullivan, and V.K. Mcdonald, “Wireless, acoustically linked, undersea, magnetometer sensor network,” OCEANS 2009, MTS/IEEE Biloxi - Marine Technology for Our Future: Global and Local Challenges, Oct. 2009.
C.-Y. Wan, S. B. Eisenman, and A. T. Campbell, “CODA: Congestion Detection and Avoidance in Sensor Networks,” Proc. the 1st International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, 2003, pp. 266–279.
B.A. Warneke and K.S.J. Pister, “An ultra-low energy microcontroller for smart dust wireless sensor networks,” Proc. 2004 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, San Francisco, CA, 2004.
G. Wu, H. Ji, K. Hansen, T. Thundat, R. Datar, R. Cote, M.F. Hagan, A.K. Chakraborty, and A. Majumdar, “Origin of nanomechanical cantilever motion generated from biomolecular interactions,” Proc. National Academy of Science, USA, vol. 4, 2001, pp. 1560–1564.
G. Yu, K. Pakbaz, and A.J. Heeger, “Semiconducting polymer diodes: Large size, low cost photodetectors with excellent visible‐ultraviolet sensitivity,” Applied Physics Letters, vol. 64, no. 25, pp. 3422–3424, Jun 1994.
F. Zee and J. Judy, “MEMS chemical gas sensor using a polymer-based array,” Proc. Transducers 1999 - The 10th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators, June 1999, Japan.
B. Zhai, S. Pant, L. Nazhandali, S. Hanson, J. Olson, A. Reeves, M. Minuth, R. Helfand, T. Austin, D. Sylvester, and D. Blaauw, “Energy-efficient subthreshold processor design,” IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, vol. 17, no. 8, Aug. 2009.
F. Zhao and L. Guibas, Wireless Sensor Networks, Elsevier, 2004.
W. Zhou, A. Khaliq, Y. Tang, H.-F. Ji, R.R. Selmic, “Simulation and design of piezoelectric microcantilever chemical sensors,” Sensors and Actuators A, vol. 125, no. 1, pp. 69–75, October 2005.
SensEdu – an e-learning material, http://www.sensedu.com/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Questions and Exercises
Questions and Exercises
-
1.
Describe the typical architecture of a wireless sensor node and its main components. What are the main hardware building blocks?
-
2.
Describe the principle of operation of an accelerometer.
-
3.
Consider a mass sitting on a nonlinear spring (Fig. 3.29):
Fig. 3.29 
Spring-mass system
Derive dynamic equation that describes the system above. Consider that the spring is nonlinear, meaning \(F_{\text{spring}} = ky^{2}\). Linearize the model around equilibrium point y 0.
-
4.
What is the difference between capacitive, piezoresistive, and piezoelectric accelerometer?
-
5.
Describe the principle of operation of a pressure sensor.
-
6.
What is the difference between piezoresistive and capacitance-based pressure sensors?
-
7.
Describe how photodiode works. Draw p–n junction and describe the equilibrium state of electrons and holes across the junction.
-
8.
Find a commercial photodiode on the web and get its important parameters from the datasheet such as gain, output current, terminal capacitance, cut-off frequency, etc.
-
9.
What is a Hall effect and how magnetometers work based on the Hall effect?
-
10.
Describe three types of chemical sensors.
-
11.
Derive relationship between an induced voltage and differential surface stress on the cantilever beam. How the cantilever beam operates as a chemical sensor?
-
12.
Use the following formula for a pressure sensor where capacitance changes based on the diaphragm deflection as \(C = \int {\int {\frac{\varepsilon }{d - w(r)}r\,{\text{d}}r\,{\text{d}}\theta } }\). Assume that the deflection follows a quadratic function pattern in terms of radial distance from the center of the circle r. Derive expression for capacitance C in terms of r for given dimension of a diaphragm with radius a.
-
13.
What is the difference between general-purpose microprocessors and event-driven microprocessors? Describe design advantages in event-driven microprocessors in WSN applications.
-
14.
What is the recommended size for the monopole antenna operating in 433, 915 MHz, and 2.4 GHz frequency range?
-
15.
If the receiver antenna polarization is not perfectly aligned with the transmitter antenna polarization, calculate the power of the received signal including loss due to difference in polarization planes. Assume the angle between antennas’ polarization is β, distance between sensor nodes is d, power of the transmitting signal is P, and the PLE is α.
-
16.
Please describe the concept of sensor network asynchronous processor? What kind of operating system is required in this case?
-
17.
Briefly explain how energy utilization may be minimized across the various layers of the WSN protocol stack.
-
18.
TDMA, FDMA and CDMA are examples of fixed assignment protocols operating at layer 2 of the WSN protocol stack. Which of these protocols is best suited for a low duty cycle for power management? Briefly explain why.
-
19.
Describe the mechanisms of operation of the following WSN transport protocols: CODA, ESRT, and Tiny TCP/IP.
-
20.
In your own words, explain the difference between schedule-based and contention-based protocols for WSN media access control. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each in the context of a WSN?
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Selmic, R.R., Phoha, V.V., Serwadda, A. (2016). WSN Architecture. In: Wireless Sensor Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46769-6_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46769-6_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46767-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46769-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)