Wireless Sensor Networks : Technology, Protocols, and Applications

20 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Task management plane
Mobility management plane
Power management plane
Management Protocols
Communication Protocols
Upper layers
(communications)
Transport layer
Network layer
Data link layer
Physical layer
Figure 1.5
Generic protocol stack for sensor networks.
applications, sensor devices must be amenable to rapid deployment, the deployment
must be supportable in an ad hoc fashion, and the environment is expected to be
highly dynamic.
Researchers have developed many new protocols specifically designed for
WSNs, where energy awareness is an essential consideration; focus has been given
to the routing protocols, since they might differ from traditional networks (depending
on the application and network architecture) [1.92]. Networking per se is an
important architectural component of sensor networks, and standards play a major
role in this context. Figure 1.5 depicts a generic protocol stack model that can be
utilized to describe the communications apparatus (also see Table 1.2). Table 1.3
shows some typical lower-layer protocols that are in principle applicable to
TABLE 1.2
Upper layers
Layer 4
Layer 3
Layer 2
Layer 1
Possible WSN Protocol Stack a
In-network applications, including application processing, data aggregation,
external querying query processing, and external database
Transport, including data dissemination and accumulation, caching, and
storage
Networking, including adaptive topology management and topological
routing
Link layer (contention): channel sharing (MAC), timing, and locality
Physical medium: communication channel, sensing, actuation, and signal
processing
a Table modeled after [1.05].