Ubiquitous Computing and Communication Journal
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SOME NOTES AND PROPOSALS ON THE USE OF IP-BASED
APPROACHES IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS
Tiago Camilo, Jorge Sá Silva, Fernando Boavida
Department of Informatics Engineering,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
tandre@dei.uc.pt
ABSTRACT
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are gaining visibility and importance in a
variety of fields and will certainly be part of our day-to-day lives in the near future.
This trend is, in effect, putting WSNs under the research community spotlight. The
feverish activity around WSNs has led to some myths and misconceptions over the
last years that, in some way, have blocked the way forward. This paper addresses
some of these myths and discusses a model for Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks
that go beyond them, showing that it is time to look at WSNs under a different
light. The paradigms that support the proposed model have a direct impact on the
addressing scheme, mobility support and route optimisation. These have been put
to the test both by simulation and prototyping, showing that they constitute solid
ground on which future Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks can be built.
Keywords: wireless sensor networks, IP, ant colony optimization, anycast.
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INTRODUCTION
Composed of a potentially high number of very
small devices, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
are one of the most promising technologies for the
21st century. Emerging WSNs make use of recent
advances in electronic sensors, communication
technologies and computation algorithms.
WSNs have unique characteristics, mainly due to
their component devices, called sensor nodes. These
nodes are
typically small size devices with
communication and monitoring capabilities, as well
as limited resources, namely in terms of memory,
energy and processing power. A node in a WSN
consists of a sensor or an actuator that is connected
to a bidirectional radio transceiver. In contrast to
sensor nodes, sink nodes (special WSN nodes that
act as central nodes which gather/distribute