Wireless sensor network is a group of smart sensors, each capable of sensing, processing and communicating, but when deployed in numbers, form a network which collectively monitor the state of the physical world. Its applications and potential benefits are tremendous and seem only limited by imagination. As any technology at its infancy stage, there are plenty of challenges and obstacles lying ahead. The interdisciplinary nature makes the design challenges wide and deep, from network protocols, power provisioning, to programming models, just to name a few. This survey paper gives a brief overview on what wireless sensor network is, what the current design challenges are, and presents ways to maximize network lifetime and the various parameters to maximize network lifetime in wireless sensor networks
2009-04-20
Department of Computer Applications Karunya University