Handbook of Research

on Progressive Trends in
Wireless Communications
and Networking

M.A. Matin
Institut Teknologi Brunei, Brunei Darussalam

A volume in the Advances in Wireless

Technologies and Telecommunication
(AWTT) Book Series
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Handbook of research on progressive trends in wireless communications and networking / M.A. Matin, editor.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4666-5170-8 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-5171-5 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-5173-9 (print &
perpetual access) 1. Wireless communication systems. 2. Mobile communication systems. 3. Sensor networks. I. Matin,
Mohammad A., 1977-
TK5103.2.H3369 2014
621.382--dc23
2013044828

This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Wireless Technologies and Telecommunication (AWTT)
(ISSN: 2327-3305; eISSN: 2327-3313)

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 317

Chapter 12
An Overview of Wireless
Sensor Networks:
Towards the Realization of Cooperative
Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring

Thomas D. Lagkas
International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, CITY College, Greece

George Eleftherakis
International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, CITY College, Greece

ABSTRACT
Wireless Sensor Networks constitute one of the highest developing and most promising fields in modern
data communication networks. The benefits of such networks are expected to be of great importance,
since applicability is possible in multiple significant areas. The research community’s interest is mainly
attracted by the usability of sensor networks in healthcare services and environmental monitoring. This
overview presents the latest developments in the field of sensor-based systems, focusing on systems de-
signed for healthcare and environmental monitoring. The technical aspects and the structure of sensor
networks are discussed, while representative examples of implemented systems are also provided. This
chapter sets the starting point for the development of an integrated cooperative architecture capable of
widely providing distributed services based on sensed data.

INTRODUCTION surrounding environment. This procedure is com-

monly called “sensing” and the corresponding
Lately, the focus of the research community is devices “sensors.” The realization of sensors has
directed towards the development of flexible and become recently possible and cost efficient, due
extensive networks, which consist of small devices to the significant advances in the field of wireless
capable of collecting information regarding the communications, hardware design, and computer
networking.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5170-8.ch012

Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) involves the researchers, the ad hoc wireless networks are
multiple sensors that are capable of collecting thought as a promising solution for realizing a
data, perform some processing, and relay them. WSN. However, ad hoc computer networks are
Sensors are expected to be able to interact with considered to constitute a networking paradigm
one another and act as intermediate nodes, when that is significantly different from the sensor net-
information needs to be routed over multiple hops working concept. Some key differences are listed
in order to reach the destination. The latter is below (Akyildiz, Su, Sankarasubramaniam, and
considered a central entity inside the WSN, often Cayirci, 2002a, 2002b):
called “sink,” where all data are gathered, stored,
and processed. The results can then be presented • A WSN may involve far more nodes than a
in a comprehensive and useful form, based on typical ad hoc network.
the specific case. • The sensing devices are typically placed
Thus, the sensing devices should incorporate close to each other to compensate for lim-
components capable of gathering information from ited transmission range.
the surroundings, convert the measurements into • Each sensor is more likely to fail.
digital form, and forward data using appropriate • WSN topology is considered highly
wireless transmission techniques, medium access dynamic.
control, and routing methodology. The required • Sensors commonly rely on broadcast trans-
flexibility in topology is directly related with the missions instead of point-to-point links.
need for self-organizing features among different • Each node has limited energy, processing
sensors. In specific, the nodes are expected to power, and memory.
cooperate and adapt to dynamic conditions, in- • The involved devices may not carry glob-
creasing the availability and reliability of the whole ally set unique addresses.
system. Taking into account that some popular
WSN applications involve deployment in harsh Regarding sensors’ special characteristics,
environments, the necessity for self-management these are straightly related to their inherent re-
becomes even more critical. source constrains (Culler, Estrin, & Srivastava,
The special area that has probably attracted 2004): The processing speed, the storage capacity,
most of the research community’s attention regard- and the communication bandwidth are all limited.
ing WSNs is energy efficiency. Sensors are small From the perspective of a system, WSNs exhibit
wireless devices that usually need to operate on substantial capabilities, but each device as an
their own energy source for extended periods of independent entity is significantly constrained
time. Hence, power consumption is an issue of in resources. Thus, sensors’ cooperation and
great importance that greatly affects the success self-organization are fundamental in fulfilling
and usefulness of multiple WSN applications. the network requirements.
For this reason, different technologies make sig- The demands regarding the operation of WSNs
nificant steps in optimizing energy conservation may be significantly challenging; in most cases the
and ensuring efficient battery charging schemes. sensors are expected to be functional for large time
According to the specific application, sensors are periods using just the energy produced by small
allowed to transit to low power modes, increase size batteries. Since most power saving schemes
the periodic transmission intervals or even switch involve long inactive periods, connectivity typi-
on only upon request. cally varies at a great degree, significantly affect-
Since the decentralized approach in the opera- ing the overall system reliability. For this reason,
tion of WSNs is becoming very popular among the deployment pattern, the node density, and the

318
An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

employed communication protocols are of great up with the correct diagnosis and treatment. This
importance, especially for critical applications and information is also useful to the subjects them-
harsh environments. Moreover, a basic prerequisite selves, since they are given the capability to have
in WSNs is cost efficiency. The network installa- continuously updated information on their health
tion and management requirements should be kept status and this way take the required timely action.
as low as possible, increasing the necessity for The rest of the chapter is organized as follows:
efficient self-organization and self-management. The next section discusses the technical aspects
In regards to WSN applications, it is now evi- of sensor networks, where the communication
dent that sensor networks may be proved valuable architecture is presented first and then WSN
in multiple different cases and actually applica- specific issues are examined. In the follow-
tions increase along with the technology advances ing section, we study the application of sensor
and the evolvement of users’ demands. It is a fact networks in healthcare. In specific, the required
that WSN initial applications were related with network structure is presented along with some
military projects. However, through the years sen- related prototypes. Next, applications of WSNs in
sors have been applicable in various non-military environmental monitoring are reviewed and then
scenarios and nowadays it is considered that their related research trends are presented and future
core nature is not military. directions are provided. Finally, the chapter is
Specifically, modern sensor networks can concluded.
be used in areas such as infrastructure security,
environmental-industrial sensing, and health
monitoring (Chong & Kumar, 2003). In more BACKGROUND: WIRELESS SENSOR
detail, a popular WSN application is related to NETWORKS TECHNICAL ASPECTS
securing critical buildings and facilities. Sensors
are able to timely detect possible threats, by col- Indisputably, the special nature of the WSNs is
lecting video, acoustic, and other types of data. In accompanied by unique technical aspects that
such cases, the deployment is crucial for providing differentiate sensor networks from other types of
the required coverage and handling false alarms. networks. These aspects actually constitute tech-
Another promising application of sensor networks nical challenges for the realization of successful
is related to gathering environmental data. Typical and efficient WSNs. A typical example of a sen-
examples involve measurements of temperature, sor network that is related with major technical
humidity, pH, and air-water pollution. Industrial challenges is the case of Industrial WSN (IWSN).
sensing scenarios in particular may include special These are listed below (Gungor & Hancke, 2009):
devices capable of sensing pressure, vibration,
electromagnetic signals or even radiation levels. • Resource limitations: The realization of
This case is obviously considered to be critical, IWSNs is constrained by energy, memory,
since it is straightly related to safety. Another char- and processing resources.
acteristic application of WSNs is traffic control. • Alternating and hostile conditions: The
Sensors are capable of capturing and processing environmental conditions in industrial de-
traffic images, leading to key decisions on traf- ployments are typically harsh and often
fic prioritization and redirection. Lastly, one of lead to connection failures and topology
the hottest fields where sensors can be proved changes. Moreover, network performance
extremely useful is health monitoring. Real-time might be degraded, due to electromagnetic
or non-real-time collection of vital signals is of interference, humidity, vibrations, or oth-
high importance to physicians in order to come

319
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

er conditions (US Department of Energy, • Internetworking: Network management

2004). in IWSNs is expected to provide the ca-
• Quality-of-service (QoS) demands: pability of remote control. Nowadays, the
Applications of IWSNs may greatly vary managers of such networks require com-
having different specifications and QoS re- plete access over the Internet, in order
quirements. The latter are related with con- to be able to control it anytime and from
straints on specific network metrics, such anyplace. This actually means that IWSNs
as throughput and delay. For instance, real- should be integrated to the TCP/IP archi-
time control via sensor feedback in indus- tecture (Montenegro, Kushalnagar, Hui, &
trial environments requires direct response, Culler, 2007) using the necessary gateway
hence, very low delays. nodes (Akyildiz, Melodia, & Chowdhury,
• Data redundancy: It is a common ap- 2007).
proach to deploy sensors in close proxim-
ity. This way, collected data are typically WSN Communication Architecture
overlaid and duplicated.
• Frame errors and varying available Network Design Goals
bandwidth: The wireless links under the
harsh conditions of IWSNs are extremely In order to fulfill the special requirements, WSNs
unreliable. The exhibited Bit Error Rate should adopt a suitable communication archi-
(BER) is at high levels, especially when tecture that corresponds to the primary network
compared to other types of more reliable design goals. A set of such goals is provided in
networks. Thus, the percent of erroneous (Gungor & Hancke, 2009) and the most represen-
or lost frame is also high. Furthermore, the tative ones are listed below:
link conditions highly vary leading to sig-
nificant variations of the link capacity. • Flexible architectures and effective pro-
• Security: IWSNs often require increased tocols: WSNs are expected to constitute
security provision in order to avert passive hierarchical and modular networks that
or active network attacks. Passive attacks exhibit high flexibility, reliability, and
involve eavesdropping on transmissions, robustness.
which may reveal critical information. • Local processing and data fusion: In or-
Active attacks are usually related with data der to keep network load and overhead at
alternation or service interruption. Both low levels, the sensors can pre-process data
types of attacks may have a great impact and transmit only the required information.
on the underlying system and should be • Energy-efficient design: The maximi-
prevented by the security aspect of IWSN. zation of network lifetime can be only
• Large installation and ad hoc network achieved if power saving techniques are
structure: IWSNs may include a large employed in all aspects of the network ar-
number of sensing devices, which oper- chitecture. Protocols in multiple layers of
ate in a distributed manner. In many cases, the protocol stack should be designed with
there are no preset links and sensors com- energy conservation considerations.
municate in ad hoc mode without the sup- • Self-organization / adaptive operation:
port and direct coordination of a central Sensor networks are characterized by high-
network entity. ly dynamic topologies, which may be due
to unreliable links, power-down intervals

320
An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

or node mobility. For this reason, the in- packets reach the sink after being routed among
volved devices are expected to self-orga- interconnected wireless sensors. From that point
nize and for instance provide on-demand on, a remotely located task manager node may
alternative paths in case of link failures. receive and process or present data.
• Synchronization: In WSNs, a large num- Sensors are usually deployed very densely, so
ber of nodes need to cooperate to suc- the sensor field may include hundreds or even
cessfully provide the required service. thousands of nodes that are located a few feet
Cooperation in a highly distributed scheme away from each other. Maintaining network topol-
demands increased synchronization among ogy in such conditions is a challenging process
nodes. that can be divided to three phases (Akyildiz, Su,
• Reliability and error tolerance: Sankarasubramaniam, and Cayirci, 2002a, 2002b):
According to the application type, sensed
data should be delivered reliably through • Pre-deployment and deployment: Each
multiple hops, which may cause high pack- sensor may be placed one by one or in
et error rates. Network design is crucial to masses.
provide reliable data transfers and efficient • Post-deployment: The network topol-
error detection/correction techniques. ogy is prompt to alternations after the ini-
• Application-based design: Each WSN tial deployment, due to dynamic existing
application has specific network design re- conditions.
quirements, which significantly differenti- • Redeploying extra nodes: At any time the
ate WSN deployments from one another. addition of more sensors may be needed to
restore or expand the network.
System Structure
In regards to the architecture of WSNs, it is
The typical architecture of a sensor network is very important to be scalable. There are two main
scattered as presented in Figure 1. Each device is approaches regarding the nature of the nodes (Gun-
capable of “sensing” data and relaying informa- gor & Hancke, 2009). According to the first one
tion received by adjacent nodes. The destination (called homogeneous), all devices participating
of all transmissions originated by sensors is a in the network are identical and operate as peer
data collecting entity called “sink.” The data entities. The second approach involves heteroge-

Figure 1. Scattered nodes in WSN

321
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

neous sensors, where the simplest ones with great adopted in the deBruijn graph (DG), where nodes
resource limitations perform basic tasks (such in the same level also maintain connections. These
as “sensing”) and the most advanced ones are four types of WSN structure are illustrated in
responsible for more complicated activities (like Figure 3.
data routing). Another typical classification of The latest trends on the WSN topology are
the parts of a WSN (Qi, Iyengar, & Chakrabarty, towards ad hoc sensor networks. The fundamen-
2001) defines as sensor nodes only the devices tal concept in such networks is that links are es-
that produce the original data, the entities which tablished only when needed (Perkins, 2000). In
perform advanced tasks are called processing multiple scenarios, lightweight sensors need to
elements, whereas the communications network be deployed onsite and create temporary networks.
interconnects the processing elements. Sensors For such dynamic environments, different solu-
are associated with processing elements creating tions were proposed to enable connectivity. Au-
clusters and data routing takes place over the thors in Lim, (2001), define three primitive ser-
processing elements (Figure 2). vices that need to be implemented in self-organized
Some of the most well-known approaches in sensor networks: service lookup, node composi-
WSN structure as described in Qi, Iyengar, & tion, and dynamic adaptation. Another popular
Chakrabarty, (2001) are presented here. Accord- approach considers sensors and the provided
ing to the anarchic committee structure (AC), a services as “resource objects” registered in a
mesh network is formed without hierarchy. The centralized “lookup” service repository. Lastly,
dynamic hierarchical cone (DHC) on the other the basic idea in Estrin, Govindan, Heidemann,
hand provides a type of tree structure. Moreover, and Kumar (1999) is inspired by biological systems
hybrid structures that try to combine the advan- and involves directed diffusion of interests for
tages of both anarchic and hierarchical networks specific type of data.
have been proposed. Specifically, in the flat tree The establishment of WSN links on demand,
structure, the nodes form complete binary trees which is a feature of self-organized networks,
with fully connected roots. A similar approach is greatly differentiates sensor networks from typi-

Figure 2. A WSN architecture that involves sensors and processing elements

322
An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Figure 3. WSN structures: a) AC, b) DHC, c) flat tree, and d) DG

cal networks of stable routes. Each sensor node the sensor node. A radio unit is implemented in
discovers its neighbors using broadcasting and the transceiver, which may typically be in one of
employ distributed routing algorithms to identify the following modes: transmit, receive, idle, and
paths to the destination (Culler, Estrin, & Srivas- sleep. The latter is related to low energy conserva-
tava, 2004). During idle intervals, the nodes scan tion required by the power saving scheme. Lastly,
the wireless medium for a special symbol in the the power source is critical to the efficiency of
initial fields of a frame in order to synchronize. a sensor. It usually incorporates a small battery
Network discovery needs to be adaptable to often that may be recharged using of the promising
changes of the network topology. energy-harvesting techniques (e.g. solar, air,
An additional significant issue that is straightly vibration et. al).
related to the WSN system structure and the Software is also crucial for the successful
overall communication architecture is definitely operation of a highly distributed network, like
the hardware design. The goal here is the devel- a WSN. The related dominant approach is the
opment of low-cost and low-power sensors with offering of multiple software components to the
the following main parts (Gungor & Hancke, users as independent services according to specific
2009): sensing entity, processor, transceiver, and needs (Al-Jaroodi & Mohamed, 2012). Lately, a
power source. The sensing entity should be able new model that tends to surpass the traditional
to create a response to alternations of the physical client-server approach is the Service-Oriented
measurement. This response is actually an analog Computing (SOC) (Bichler & Lin, 2006). How-
signal that needs to be converted to digital to be ever, SOC also exhibits major problems mainly
processed and forwarded in frames. The proces- related to supporting heterogeneous platforms. For
sor is responsible for the whole functionality of this reason, a middleware system for SOC, called

323
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Service-Oriented Middleware (SOM), seems to The role of the data link layer and especially the
be of great importance. Another popular recent Medium Access Control (MAC) in self-organized
approach for multisensory data fusion is the use multihop WSNs is twofold. On one hand, the com-
of software agents (Gascueña & Fernández- munication links between multiple sensor nodes
Caballero, 2011). A well-known development need to be established, in order to build the hops
environment that is adopted in multiple research of the transmission routes. On the other hand, the
projects for building agents in sensor networks is MAC protocol is responsible for efficient resource
the Java Agent DEvelopment Framework (JADE). sharing among different nodes competing for band-
The created mobile agents are responsible for width. Existing MAC protocols are of course used
discovering services and disseminating informa- as the basis for WSNs’ data link layer, however,
tion. Representative implementations of mobile they cannot be adopted as is. The absence of a
agents for multisensory data fusion can be found central entity that controls transmissions and the
in Biswas, Qi, and Xu (2008) and Karlsson, Back- dynamic nature of the self-configured systems lead
strom, Kulesza, and Axelsson (2005). to the necessity for highly distributed schemes. A
summary of MAC protocols for sensor networks
WSN Specific Networking Issues that base on CSMA and can be used in healthcare
systems is presented in Egbogah and Fapojuwo
The network protocol stack that is adopted in (2011) and provided in Table 1.
WSNs is crucial for the system behavior. As it As it is already discussed, WSNs are dy-
is already explained, the sensor networks have namic multihop networks, hence, there is a sig-
special requirements that need to be handled with nificant demand for efficient network layer pro-
the development of WSN specific mechanisms in tocols which are able to successfully route data
the corresponding network layers. between the sensors and the sink. The main prin-
Starting with the physical layer, its functional- ciples when designing a WSN routing protocol
ity includes handling frequency channels, signal according to Akyildiz, Su, Sankarasubramaniam,
modulation, and carrier detection. In order to and Cayirci (2002a, 2002b) are energy efficiency,
ensure power consumption minimization, radio data-centricity, data aggregation, and location
transmissions need to be of limited range. This is awareness. A typical approach in WSN routing is
the main reason behind the dense deployment of the division of the network in clusters, where a
sensors in WSNs and leads to the need for multi- hierarchical routing process takes place among
hop communications. Low-power transmissions cluster-heads and members of the same cluster
make high data rate communications extremely (Mendes & Rodrigues, 2011). One of the most
challenging. Efficient modulation schemes need referred cluster-based routing protocols for sensor
to be developed, that enable the transmission of networks is LEACH (WB, AP, & H, 2002), which
multiple bits per signal symbol, while keeping is also capable of power saving. Another important
bit error rate at sufficiently low levels despite the feature of modern routing protocols for WSNs is
highly unreliable wireless links. A very promis- QoS support, which is considered essential for
ing technology for the physical layer of WSNs is the prioritized forwarding of data based on their
Ultra-WideBand (UWB), which is introduced for differentiation (Hung & Huang, 2010).
short-range wireless transmissions at increased As far as the transport layer is concerned, it is
data rates. It exhibits low complexity, low cost, actually necessary when WSN access through the
and high robustness (Mendes & Rodrigues, 2011). Internet is desired, a requirement not placed by
Other candidate technologies are introduced in a significant number of works. However, remote
related standards and are presented later in this access to sensors’ data is eventually expected to
subsection. be of great importance. The current transport

324
An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Table 1. MAC protocols for sensor networks that base on CSMA and can be used in healthcare systems
(Egbogah & Fapojuwo, 2011)

DS-MAC (Yuan,
S-MAC (Ye, Dynamic Sensor MAC
MS-SMAC (Pham & Bagga, Shen,
Criteria Heidemann, & Estrin, (Lin, Qiao, & Wang,
Jha, 2004) Balakrishnan, &
2004) 2004)
Benhaddou, 2008)
Adaptive discovery of
Service differentiation
Main Feature Message passing Dynamic duty cycle neighbors and dynamic
via channel prioritization
duty cycle
+ Save energy consumed
+ Automatic adjustment + Energy efficiency
Energy Efficiency when idle (not discussed)
of duty cycles prioritization
- Weak for VBR traffic
+ Latency kept low, - Network lifetime exten- + Emergency traffic ac-
- Medium sharing unfair-
Delay thanks to automatic ad- sion at expense of high cess channel sooner with
ness increases latency
justment of duty cycles delay low delays
+ Duty cycle adjust-
ment at different update + Nodes stay connected
- Stations considered intervals thanks to the adapta-
Mobility (not discussed)
fixed - Different mobility tion of the neighbor
conditions not shown to discovery
be efficiently supported

layer protocols may be considered to some degree is also a field of increasing interest. The compara-
sufficient Akyildiz, Su, Sankarasubramaniam, tive analysis of the dominant contemporary video
and Cayirci, 2002a, 2002b). The fact though codecs has revealed that VBR traffic transfer
that protocols like TCP and UDP employ global over sensor networks is inefficient (Mendes &
addressing makes them difficult to apply to sen- Rodrigues, 2011).
sors networks, where the nodes usually adopt A very promising modern trend regarding
attribute-based naming. In general, transport layer the layered approach in WSNs is the cross-layer
is considered too complicated, energy demanding, design. It is now a common place that there is
and not straightly necessary for implementation interdependence between the functions addressed
in the WSN layered architecture, hence, some at different layers of a sensor network protocol
researchers have realized transport layer function- stack (Kozat, Koutsopoulos, & Tassiulas, 2004).
alities, such as congestion control, in lower layer The three first layers affect each other at a great
protocols (Mendes & Rodrigues, 2011). degree. Both physical and data link layers have a
Despite the fact that numerous applications high impact on the resource allocation and channel
for sensor networks have been proposed, there are utilization (Gungor & Hancke, 2009). The deci-
very limited introductions of WSN specific ap- sions on the network layer affect the operation of
plication layer protocols in the literature Akyildiz, the two lower layers, while the latter undoubtedly
Su, Sankarasubramaniam, and Cayirci (2002a, affect routing. Moreover, the provision of efficient
2002b). Three significant tasks for sensor networks QoS support, security, and energy conservation
that need to be addressed by the corresponding is a multilayer issue and cannot be addressed in a
application layer protocols are the following: sen- single layer (MC & IF, 2009). For these reasons,
sor management, data advertisement, and sensor there are now multiple proposals in the literature of
query – data dissemination. Moreover, multimedia cross-layer schemes for wireless sensor networks
data processing at the application layer of WSNs (Mendes & Rodrigues, 2011).

325
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

The most commonly adopted multilayer wire- for healthcare provision. Nowadays, small devices
less networking standards for WSNs come from can be easily built to take physical measurements.
the IEEE 802.15 workgroup. Specifically, the These sensors can now be cost and power efficient.
IEEE 802.15.4 standard was designed for use in These capabilities along with the sensors’ small
wireless personal area networks (IEEE 802.15.4, size allow embedding sensors in different everyday
2006). It defines four transmission schemes, objects, like furniture, watches, or even clothes
where the first three operated and the 868/915 (Korhonen, Parkka, & Gils, 2003). In-hospital and
MHz frequency band and the last one at the 2450 out-of-hospital monitoring are hot research areas
MHz band. It is considered to be low-rate and it for long time now. Especially the ability of col-
can function in both centralized and distributed lecting physiological variables’ values in real-time
architectures, based on the CSMA/CA access and in real-life conditions can be proved extremely
technique. Note that the commercial name of useful for applying the appropriate treatment or
the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is now “ZigBee.” In improving the subject’s wellbeing.
order to handle high-rate transmissions, the IEEE A special field of health monitoring that has
802.15.3 standard was introduced (IEEE 802.15.3, lately gathered a lot of attention is that of wearable
2003). Its specifications match the demands of sensor-based systems (Pantelopoulos & Bourba-
multimedia data, such as video traffic. It oper- kis, 2010). The increment in healthcare costs and
ates at 2.4 GHz and employs a hybrid CSMA/CA the advances in sensors’ technology have greatly
and TDMA scheme. Another popular standard affected the development of this specific research
that is also used in WSNs is Bluetooth (Mendes area. Different sensing devices of constrained
& Rodrigues, 2011). It supports medium-rate size can be combined in such a health monitor-
transmissions at maximum range of 100 m. Its ing system. In this manner, the health status of a
medium access control is cluster-based (forming patient, an elderly person or even an athlete can
piconets) and it is capable of power saving. Lastly, be monitored seamlessly, that is without affecting
it should be clarified that a popular approach the subject’s daily activities, and on a constant
for wirelessly interconnecting sensors is IEEE basis. Among the expected results is high quality
802.11 (commercially known as “Wi-Fi”) (IEEE health service provision.
802.11, 2007). It is capable of operating both at These systems actually involve sensor networks
the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz license-free bands. It that may be formed even on or around a person’s
supports multiple data rates and different ranges, body, so they are called Wireless Body Area
according to the specific standard version. The Networks (WBANs) (Barakah & Ammad-uddin,
IEEE 802.11 standards defines both a central- 2012). The nodes of such networks are character-
ized and a distributed MAC scheme, however, ized of short range and low data rate. The WBAN
the CSMA-based distributed MAC scheme is by specifications as presented in Zhen, Li, and Kohno
far the most popular. (2009) are provided at Table 2. The IEEE 802.15
Task group 6 is standardizing the current WBAN
detailed specifications.
WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
FOR HEALTHCARE Healthcare System Network
Structure
Overview of Healthcare WSNs
The network structure of a healthcare sensor-
The recent major developments in sensor technol- based system is examined in Alemdar and Ersoy
ogy, wireless networking, and computer science (2010). According to the specific study, the main
have enabled the introduction of new solutions components that comprise the system are: the

326
An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Table 2. Specifications of a WBAN

collected and actions are accordingly triggered.
Characteristic Value
It may incorporate machine learning algorithms
Range 2 to 5 meters
and alarm systems.
Time to start up Less than 100 ns
The network structure of the u-healthcare
system proposed in Hung and Huang (2010)
Time to setup network Less than 1 sec per device
compared to the one presented above exhibits both
Power consumed About 1mW per Mbps
similarities and differences. The bottom line of
Density of the network 2 to 4 nodes per m2
this architecture is the wireless personal area
End-to-end delay 10 ms
network that consists of the sensors capturing
Network size Maximum of 100 sensors per
network vital information, which is then transmitted using
a mobile device with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi inter-
faces. The access point at the wireless local area
body area network, the personal area network, the network relays data to the corresponding database
gateway, the wide area network, and the monitor- server, which then forwards data through an In-
ing application. A depiction of this architecture is ternet router to the database system of the health-
provided in Figure 4. The body area network is the care center.
WSN formed by the sensors on the subjects’ body. The general telemedicine architecture that is
These sensing devices may be electrocardiogram proposed in Grgić, Zagar, and Krizanović (2011)
sensors, RFID tags or measure body temperature, consists of three main parts: the local sensory
blood pressure et al. They come in very small sizes, area, the communication network area, and the
they can be wearable and they need to be energy institutional network area. The first one includes
efficient. The personal area network consists of medical sensors attached to the patients’ body.
environmental sensors, such as audio and video They support wireless connectivity, typical using
capturing devices, and mobile devices. Moreover, ZigBee links. A small mobile device that patient
this subsystem can provide location tracking by carries collects the information obtained by the
using the corresponding appliances, like GPS sensors and is responsible for forwarding the data
receivers. The gateway is the subsystem that in- destined to the medical institution. The commu-
terconnects the body and personal area networks nication network connects the local sensory area
to the wide area network. It can be any device to the medical institution using different access
that carries interfaces for the different networks technologies, such as 2G/3G, WiMAX (IEEE
and is capable of routing data from one to the 802.16, 2004) et al. The data reaching the destina-
other. For instance, a server computer, a laptop, tion are stored in the corresponding database and
a tablet or even a smartphone with connectivity are analyzed by the physicians, in order to draw
to the Internet can be adopted. The nature of conclusions and possibly take action.
the wide area network may vary depending on The communication standards that can be
the scenario. Probably the highest flexibility is employed for wireless connectivity in wearable
provided by the cellular networks that can act as health monitoring systems are summarized and
wide area networks interconnecting roaming sub- evaluated in Pantelopoulos and Bourbakis (2010).
jects to the monitoring subsystem. Other possible Long-range data communications between remote
candidates are the modern wireless broadband devices in the examined system can be supported
access technologies or even the traditional access by a variety of technologies, such as WLAN,
schemes through the telephone system. The last GSM, GPRS, and UMTS (Halonen, Romero, &
subsystem in this architecture is the monitoring J. Melero, 2003), which offer wide area wireless
application, which is the place where all data are access. Moreover, the developments in 4G mobile
communications are expected to facilitate the col-

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Figure 4. Main components of a healthcare sensor-based system

lection of real-time data from remotely located ing location, monitoring medication intake, and
wearable medical sensors. The communication monitoring medical status. Regarding health status
standards that are most commonly used for body information routing, only a very few systems use
area networks are Bluetooth and ZigBee. The main multihop routing, while this is important in ex-
advantage of ZigBee is its power saving capability; tending the area covered by the system. In Table
however, the latest versions of Bluetooth define 3, a number of healthcare systems examples are
efficient energy conservation mechanisms as well. presented, according to the above classification.
Other candidate schemes include UWB, infrared The corresponding sources can be found in the
links, and medical implant communications. “ADDITIONAL READING SECTION.”
Lastly, typical Wi-Fi networks are commonly used In Hung and Huang (2010), the authors have
for short-range links, despite the fact that they developed and tested a WSN-based healthcare
are not specially designed for such applications. monitor system, called U-healthcare. Initially,
they set up a IPv6 laboratory network including
Sensor-Based Healthcare Prototypes PDA-based sensors for ECG measurements, a
system for indoor positioning, physiology signal
Recently, some prototypes on pervasive health- acquisition, and RFID application. The local area
care monitoring have made their appearance. network is divided in two parts: a) servers and
According to Alemdar and Ersoy (2010), their Website and b) care service sensor at the demon-
main focus categories are: monitoring everyday stration site. The wide area network is connected
activities, detecting fall and movement, track- through a IPv4/IPv6 Stack Router to the Aca-

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An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Table 3. Classification of healthcare systems examples (Alemdar & Ersoy, 2010)

Monitoring Everyday Detecting Fall and \ Monitoring Medication Monitoring Medical

Tracking Location
Activities Movement Intake Status
AICO ITALH RFID way finding RFID medic. ctrl. MobiHealth
CareNet Disp. Act. Mon. & Fall Dr. Ultra Badge iCabiNET CodeBlue
Caregiver’s Ast. Fall Detection ZUPS iPackage AlarmNet
WISP Smart Phone HCM ALMAS LifeGuard
LiveNET Smart HCN Passive mon. Med. Supervision
HipGuard FireLine
Baby Glove
LISTENse
WLAN ECG
Mobile ECG
PATHS
AWARENESS

demica Sinica server, which is then connected to Smartphones that support Java and Bluetooth
healthcare centers and hospitals. The same struc- can operate as data aggregators. A list of other
ture was later tested in the China Medical Uni- interesting solutions in sensor-based healthcare
versity, Beigang Hospital with eight patients and monitoring systems examined in Grgić, Zagar,
five nursing staff. and Krizanović (2011) is the following: Smart
Some promising mobile healthcare systems Medical Home (Center for Future Health, 2010),
which are based on body area sensor networks are Secure Mobile Computing (J & AC, 2010), Medi-
reviewed in Grgić, Zagar, and Krizanović (2011). cal MoteCare (KF, E, & B, 2009), MEMS Wear
CodeBlue (Shnayder, Chen, Lorincz, Fulford- (FEH, DG, L, MN, & KL, 2009), MEDIC (WH,
Jones, & Welsh, 2005) is a telemedicine system AAT, MA, LK, JD, & WJ, 2008).
developed in the Harvard University that imple- The authors in Nangalia, Prytherch, and Smith
ments an ad hoc sensor network for medical care (2010) study a number of examples of healthcare
purposes. The system includes the hardware infra- monitoring systems with proven positive out-
structure as well as a scalable software platform. comes. Lastly, a set of selected wearable sensor-
CodeBlue is capable of performing all necessary based systems for health monitoring are reviewed in
networking tasks, database management, security Pantelopoulos and Bourbakis (2010) and the most
provision, and positioning. AMON (Advanced representative ones are: HealthGear (Microsoft)
care and alert portable telemedical MONitor) (U, (Oliver & Flores-Mangas, 2006), MyHeart (EU
et al., 2004) was the result of a European Union IST FP6 program) (Habetha, 2006), WEALTHY
sponsored project for continuous monitoring (EU IST FP5 program) (Paradiso, Loriga, &
high-risk patients. It constitutes of a device worn Taccini, 2005), Human++ (IMEC) (Gyselinckx,
at the wrist, which captures vital signals, analyses Penders, & Vullers, 2007), Lifeshirt (Vivometrics)
them, and sends the results to the remote health- (Heilman & Porges, 2007), AUBADE (Univer-
care center via the cellular network. The Personal sity of Ioannina, Greece) (Katsis, Gianatsas, &
Care Connect platform was developed by IBM to Fotiadis, 2006), Bioharness (Zephyr Inc) (05Ze),
provide interfaces for different medical sensors for HeartToGo (University of Pittsburg) (Jin, Oresko,
remote monitoring of patients (M, et al., 2007). Huang, & Cheng, 2009), Personal Health Monitor
Information is forwarded from the sensors to a (University of Technology, Sydney) (Leijdekkers
server that processes, stores, and presents data. It & Gay, 2008), and MERMOTH (EU IST FP6
is an open and extendable platform that provides program) (Luprano, 2006).
Java-based application programming interfaces.

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 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS highly populated areas will enable power saving,
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL security enhancement, and improve in response
MONITORING time (Sallabi, Odeh, & Shuaib, 2011).

Overview of Environmental WSNs Examples of Sensor-Based

Environmental Monitoring Systems
WSNs were initially thought to be just new tools for
collecting data from the surrounding environment, Lately, a number of environmental WSNs have
however, they are now considered to constitute been implemented. In Corke, Wark, Jurdak, Hu,
parts of a complete information system (Corke, Valencia, and Moore (2010), the authors present
Wark, Jurdak, Hu, Valencia, & Moore, 2010). This five monitoring systems they have deployed, in
is a multiparty system that involves Internet com- order to understand agricultural and natural envi-
munication lines, application servers, databases, ronments in Australia. The “Cattle Monitoring”
and presentation software. The productivity of a system includes a WSN at a research farm, where
sensor-based environmental monitoring system the project involves different phases. Initially, the
mainly depends on the assistance it provides to positions of cattle had to be recorded as well as
system users in order to complete their scientific soil moisture at several points. Multiple fixed and
or business tasks. The applications of WSNs may mobile sensors transmit data to a base station,
greatly vary and include monitoring the natural which then relay data to a remote server through the
environment and agricultural scenarios. In more Internet. The “Fleck1C” series (Corke P.) of nodes
specific, some examples are related with microcli- were employed, programmed under the TinyOS
mate monitoring for forests and farms, monitoring (Levis, et al., 2005), and adopting the ZTDMA
of the water-climate, cattle monitoring and control, MAC protocol. The second sensor-based project
virtual fencing, and biodiversity monitoring. is called “Ground Water Quality Monitoring”
Sensor networks are wireless systems that con- and it involves just nine nodes that monitor water
trarily to other popular applications do not require table level, salinity, and water extraction rate. The
complicated equipment or fixed infrastructure and “Fleck3” sensor platform is adopted, the operating
are promising to change the perception of men system is the TinyOS, and the employed network
for nature. Authors in Xiaodong, Jun, Ping, and protocol “MintRoute” (Multihop Routing, 2003).
Kaifeng (2011) have worked on the agricultural The “Virtual Fencing” system is again related to
data collection and studied the related automation cattle control. Eighty sensors are included, which
system. In the context of the specific project, a are based on the “Fleck3” and the “Fleck Nano”
greenhouse lab of 85 square meters was built and hardware platform and they are programmed under
a control system for greenhouse monitoring via the Fleck Operating System (FOS). The fourth
the CAN bus technology was implemented. The system is about monitoring rainforest ecosystems
system gathered environmental information from in the long-run. The employed hardware platform
a WSN in a greenhouse and forwarded the data is “Fleck3,” there are only eight networked sen-
to a central control subsystem. sors, and the operating system is FOS. Lastly, the
Another promising application related to “Lake Water Quality Monitoring” project was
environmental sensor networks lies on the field deployed to measure temperature at various points
of indoor tracking. Outdoor positioning systems and depths on a large lake that provides drinking
are already well established, since most of the water. The WSN is composed of fifty “Fleck3”
implementation challenges are addressed via sat- sensors that are FOS-based.
ellite localization schemes. The use of WSNs in

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REALnet (Albesa, Casas, Penella, & Gasulla, Puerto Rico. Its main objective was to collect
2007) is an environmental sensor-based testbed and analyze almost real-time data from different
implemented at the campus of the UPC University sensors in order to facilitate the studying of large
in Spain. The main goal of this system is to moni- scale natural systems.
tor environmental variables from ground, water,
and air. The built WSN involves temperature and
water level sensors, which communicate with a FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
central station. REALnet is characterized as an
embryonic WSN for environmental monitoring The latest research trends are toward the opti-
and was initially started from a project (Labora- mization of all mechanisms related with WSN
tori REAL de la UPC) that kicked off in 2001. operation. All layers of sensor-based networks
The final objective is the monitoring of the air are now considered hot research fields with
temperature, pressure, humidity, ambient light, promising development perspectives. One of
ground temperature and humidity, and water tem- the specific aspects that is generally expected to
perature, level, and conductivity. Moreover, the evolve in WSN is QoS provision. In more detail,
sensors should be low-cost, energy autonomous, modern applications of sensor networks demand
and maintenance-free. In order to achieve these efficient differentiation of network traffic, so that
requirements, harvesting environmental energy the various types of traffic are treated according
is needed. Three types of nodes are considered: to their specific features. For example, real-time
sensor, router, and coordinator. All nodes employ transmitted data require low latency and jitter.
the ETRX2 module (ETRX-2 Zigbee Module However, the highly unreliable WSN links make
Product Manual) as a transceiver, which is based QoS provision very challenging. A key factor here
on EM240 System-on-Chip (EmberZnet Ap- is the efficient distribution of the wireless chan-
plication Developers guide) working in compat- nel resources among multiple nodes. In Lagkas,
ibility with ZigBee at 2.4 GHz. The sensors were Angelidis, Stratogiannis, and Tsiropoulos (2010),
programmed to measure and send data every 30 we present the result of our work toward the
seconds (emergency mode) or 2 hours (normal development of a bandwidth sharing scheme for
mode). Router nodes were required to be constantly sensor networks, which takes into account nodes’
active to forward data between the central node queue load and packet priorities. The specific
and the sensors. For this reason, two small sized solution focuses on traffic differentiation based
solar cells were connected in parallel to recharge on its importance, while addressing the overload
the 3-day autonomous batteries. Lastly, the central buffer problem. The presented analytical and
node is always on collecting data and connected simulation results exhibit a non-linear relation-
to a computer via serial port. ship between the ratio of the bandwidth assigned
The authors in Lu, Qian, Rodriguez, Rivera, to different buffers and their loading rates ratio.
and Rodriguez (2007) focus on the design of Moreover, in Lagkas, Stratogiannis, Tsiropoulos,
environmental WSNs, mainly for coastal area Sarigiannidis, and Louta (2011) we analyze the
acoustic monitoring. The designed framework packet delay values when such a bandwidth al-
takes into consideration that WSNs are usually location scheme is adopted. Our cross-validated
heterogeneous and the fact that the network layer results reveal that the specific approach provides
must fulfill the applications’ requirements for ef- efficient bandwidth sharing and minimum packet
ficient wireless monitoring. The examined WSN delay. Furthermore, the cooperative capabilities
testbed (The WALSAIP Project) was developed of a broadcast network (illustrated in Figure 5),
at the JBNEER environmental observatory in like a WSN, are analyzed in Lagkas, Stratogiannis,

331
 An Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Tsiropoulos, and Angelidis (2011), where we tive agents will be able to advertize and discover
provide fairness metrics among traffic flows of services related with the dissemination of sensors’
different priorities and rates. collected data. Regarding the hardware require-
Currently, we have started working on the ments, the latest developments of the system-on-
“MedVision” project, which involves the develop- a-chip technology provide the ability of imple-
ment of a complete, automated, and flexible menting small sized devices of significant
distributed system for monitoring health status, processing power, low energy demands, and ex-
human activity, and/or environmental variables tensive connectivity. All widely-spread wireless
in different remote locations. Our objective is communication schemes for WSNs will be exam-
building a framework that involves different type ined for the interconnection of the different mobile
independent sensors, which would be able to devices. Among the latest WSN research issues
provide autonomous services to any requesting that are taken into consideration in this project
entity. The main goal is the integration of various are ad hoc connectivity, network self-configura-
smart sensors capable of supporting different tion, energy efficiency, resource requirements
applications without the limitations imposed by optimization, distributed service provision, and
a centralized architecture. For this reason, we are software agents’ interaction-behavior.
planning to develop advanced software agents,
forming an extended overlay network. The respec-
CONCLUSION

Figure 5. A cooperative broadcast network (Lagkas It is now evident that the wireless sensor networks
T. D., Stratogiannis, Tsiropoulos, & Angelidis, are capable of providing advanced services, which
2011) attract the attention of various scientific and
commercial fields. On these grounds, the related
research attempts have rapidly grown in the last
decade and are expected to grow even more in the
future, since the tremendous advances in mobile
computing have enabled the implementation of
smart, autonomous, and self-configured sensor-
based systems. This overview presented the most
important aspects of WSNs, revealing the latest
trends in sensor network design, system structure,
and hardware/software platforms. We specially
focused on the promising applications of sensor-
based networks in healthcare and environmental
monitoring, quoting various representative imple-
mentation efforts globally. The growing need
for accessing different type of data collected by
various remote sensors in a completely distributed
manner drives us to the development of an inte-
grated cooperative system for the efficient wide
dissemination of monitoring information without
the constrains imposed by central control.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT Alemdar, H., & Ersoy, C. (2010). Wireless sen-

sor networks for healthcare: A survey. Computer
This work was supported by the “MedVision” Networks, 54(15), 2688–2710. doi:10.1016/j.
project, which is funded in part by the European comnet.2010.05.003
Union.
Barakah, D. M., & Ammad-Uddin, M. (2012). A
survey of challenges and applications of wireless
body area network (WBAN) and role of a virtual
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