Unique Features of Sensor Networks
Direct interaction with the physical world Sensor nodes are designed to interact with the physical world and to perform computational tasks based on the information gathered from the surrounding environment. often referred to as smart sensor nodes because they combine both sensing functions with digital logic, which allows for some intelligent processing of the readings obtained from the on-chip sensor(s). Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019
Usually special-purpose devices Many different types of sensors have been developed, including thermal sensors, magnetic sensors, vibration sensors, chemical sensors, biologic sensors, light sensors, and acoustic sensors. The cost and complexity of providing many sensors on the same node may be too high. In addition, sensor nodes have limited memory and processing power. For all these reasons, it is expected that these nodes will be customized for a specific application rather than functioning as a general purpose computational device. Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019
Very limited resources Wireless sensor nodes obviously have limited communication bandwidth because of the need to share the wireless medium among many sensor nodes. However, these nodes have other severe limitations because of the anticipated low cost of sensor nodes, along with the constraints mentioned previously. The limited available power is a special challenge for sensor nodes. Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019
Operate without a human interface Because sensor nodes are small, they have few, if any, peripherals. There are no input devices, such as a keyboard, mouse, or pen. In fact, the only item remotely constituting an input device may be an on/off switch. The only outputs that provide directly human-readable output are at most a few indicator lights and perhaps a speaker. Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019
Specialized routing patterns Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019
Proposed Applications Military applications Medical applications Environmental applications Industrial applications Dr. Ashish Kr. Luhach 1/12/2019