Towards Achieving Reliability in Wireless Sensor Networks –A Survey

Sumeet Gupta, Shekhar Verma, Raj K. Abrol
2015 International Journal of Control and Automation  
Sensor nodes in a WSN are deployed with the intention of collecting information such that the activities and environment in the target area can be faithfully reconstructed at a remote location using the raw data collected and action then may be taken based on same. Reliability of the deployed WSN becomes critical in this context as decision making could be adversely affected in case the reconstruction is incorrect. This becomes a major issue for Wireless Sensor & Actuator Networks where
more » ... n is automated and solely dependent upon the reliability of information collected. The authors present a critical analysis of the various protocols and techniques proposed for ensuring reliability in Wireless Sensor Networks. A categorization of the techniques has been presented with emphasis on identifying the desirable features in a protocol which enables achieving higher degree of reliability. The challenges and critical requirements of reliable data acquisition as applicable to WSNs is also identified. The paper links the concept of reliability in WSNs to the traditional concept of reliability as applicable to devices. 418 Copyright ⓒ 2015 SERSC ability of the network to transfer the collected information to the centralized sink [2] while still maintaining a long working life. This unreliability has a direct impact on the ability of the sink to reconstruct the actual occurrence of the events in the area over which they are deployed. This has a direct bearing on the decisions made at the sink based on the information collected by the sensor network. The effect of some of these factors on the performance of the WSN can be mitigated by use of soft-computing techniques [46] while new hardware and system level design techniques can be utilized for others [47] . Ensuring energy efficient and reliable transport of data in resource constrained Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is hard to achieve but is critical [3] for any practical real-life implementation. Copyright ⓒ 2015 SERSC 419 of these. Each proposed technique has attempted to optimize certain parameters while balancing others. In some cases, the researchers have validated the simulation results by conducting experiment on a test-bed of MICAz or IRIS motes. Although most of the techniques are based on recovering the lost information by re-transmission of the lost packet, there are some which recover lost or damaged information by using redundancy techniques [16, [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] . Authors have surveyed a large number of existing techniques and presented their critical analysis and comparison between them in the subsequent sections. Definition of the concept of reliability in context of WSNs is also discussed.
doi:10.14257/ijca.2015.8.5.39 fatcat:mu24uijiizfqpdm2ej3dqendci