Wireless Sensor Networks - Enablers of the

Internet of Things

ICTE 715 group

Aalborg Uinversity
 Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

3. Problem Statement

4. Weighted sum approach

5. Business Perspective

6. Conclusions
 1. Introduction

According to Prof Dr. Elgar Fleisch, Research Director & Co-chair of Auto Id Labs, University of
St. Gallen, Zurich, Internet of Things (IOT) is a Vision – not a Technology. It is a vision of
expanding the Internet to real world objects. Real world objects have sensors and can
“communicate” about themselves and with each other. Real world objects will communicate
with their “homepage” and will have a digital presence in the virtual world.

Since the beginning of the Internet thirty years ago, we have witnessed a number of changes in
the applications and communication technologies deployed in it. Today, Internet can be
described to a large extent as a ubiquitous infrastructure that is always accessible. After the era
of connecting places and connecting people, the Internet of the future will also connect things.
Wireless sensor plays a vital role as an enabler in Internet of things. When wireless sensor
nodes (WSN) are included in the IoT it is likely that one of the more vulnerable parts will be the
sensor nodes themselves.

Applications

There can be many applications which can be implemented using WSN some of them are :-

1) Area Monitoring
 Natural Disaster Monitoring
 Ocean monitoring
 Forest Management

2) Tele health care

3) Military Application

In case of natural disasters, the problems and catastrophes usually affect the crowded area
more wildly, since the level of reaction and reply to happenings are low, therefore the chance
for panic and illogical decisions are higher. So, WSN can be used to pass on the information of
any disaster to different places. The information can be used as Alarming or Post Disaster
rescue.
Fig1. Use case scenario
 2. Overview of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to the
broad application area. Area monitoring, military applications and telehealthcare are only some
of the domains in which WSNs are expected to bring major improvements. Moreover, WSNs are
considered to be the main enablers of Internet of Things (IoT) and Real World Internet (RWI) by
which a huge number of sensors will be deployed to make it possible to interact with the real
world. One of the main challenges in WSNs is the conservation of battery by minimizing energy
usage, while not introducing more routing delay or additional packet losses. The routing of
information in WSNs is one of the places where energy can be saved. However, preserving
energy during routing can cause decreased throughput or prolonged latency.

A large number of routing algorithms exist or have been proposed for WSNs and each of these
has certain advantages and disadvantages that make them suitable for delivery of an
application on one or the other WSN service platform. This paper presents a modification of the
AODV routing algorithm by implementing a weighted-sum approach as it will be described later
in the paper.

AODV is an on-demand, distance vector protocol designed for ad-hoc networks, introducing
therefore a series of advantages when discussing about networks without a fixed infrastructure,
which are conditioned by external factors such as landscape constraints, hardware limitations
or reduced intelligence of the device itself.

This paper is proposing a generic scalarization routing mechanism which can adjust to QoS
requirements of different natural disasters. The modification of the algorithm consists in
changing the RREQ and RREP packages of AODV so that they contain information about the
new metric considered by the weighted sum. Consequently, the weighted sum method
introduces a function that has to be minimized in order to obtain the desired results.
Minimizing delay, packet loss and energy consumption are the QoS attributes considered. An
evaluation of the proposed routing mechanism is done in comparison with the existing
approaches from the literature.
 3. Problem statement

Innovative technologies help the modern society to adapt to changes quickly and effectively, by
introducing new ways of monitoring the environment and preventing external factors to
interfere with the society behavior. Even so, there are some problems that cannot be stopped
or prevented from happening: land movements, water disaster, fires. The impact of these
natural disasters could affect humans and environment for short or long time periods, having a
great economical and social impact.

Areas prone to natural disasters exist all over the globe but the countries which are most
predisposed to natural disaster are southern part of North America and the west coast of
Southern America and Japan.
We aim therefore to reduce risk, prepare people, communities and economies to withstand
disasters.

Concluding, there is a need of proactive disaster management, and one enabler of it could
come in the form of wireless sensor networks.

There are many projects under development that aim to improve only one aspect of the routing
services of the WSN in order to monitor natural disasters. By contrast, our goal is to obtain a set
of solutions that will lead to an innovative approach of routing algorithms which will improve
the network’s response in case of calamities.

Many projects are already in development. They are focusing on smartening the environment
in developing countries, optimizing awareness in WSNs, processing spatial queries on WSNs to
detect dangers in disaster situations, improving the detection level of natural disasters by
obtaining a static covered network in 3-D environment etc.

Our project is going to improve AODV routing protocol by reducing packet forwarding delay,
minimizing energy consumption and packet loss until to have more efficiency while monitoring
natural disasters.
 4. Weighted sum approach

Motivation for using AODV:

We have chosen AODV for routing in wireless sensor networks because it doesn’t need a
central administrative system to handle packet forwarding (usually, sensor networks are
deployed by using a flat scheme and new sensors can always be added in order to fulfill the
user’s requirements), it uses a reduced number of control messages(which we will further
discuss) and has a fast response in case of change in the network (yet another essential aspect
when it comes to routing packets in a network that has to provide information fast and with
minimum of energy consumption).
Also, while talking about wireless sensors, one should take into consideration memory and
computation capabilities of the hardware; we are therefore interested in a protocol that
doesn’t require a big memory in order to store routes that link thousands of nodes (the usual
size of a wireless sensor network). AODV, as an on-demand protocol, it doesn’t require large
routing tables as routers aren’t aware of the entire topology of the network. Reducing
congestion, the robustness and the scalability of AODV are other reasons that argument the
choice of using it in our paper. Because it uses few control packets, it requires reduced
processing capabilities, making it suitable for networks of cheap wireless sensors.
The set of parameters for improvement: motivation

Energy constraints:
Wireless sensor networks are usually deployed in various landscapes and climate areas where
field conditions make impossible to support unlimited energy, therefore, while designing a
routing protocol, the first aspect one should take into consideration is energy awareness. We
have chosen therefore energy consumption as one of the parameters for improvement.
Packet loss:
In order for an efficient data transmission, nodes in wireless sensor networks must cooperate.
This however doesn’t happen when using the classic AODV and sensors can act selfish and start
dropping packets in order to conserve energy; therefore, we have chosen to focus our research
on packet loss also.
Delay:
In order to prolong network lifetime, wireless sensors work in duty cycle: they alternate sleep
mode with active mode, which leads inevitably to delay in gathering and sending data. As our
work focuses on the network layer of the TCP/IP stack, without any cross-layer reference, we
will take into consideration only the delay that the routing process introduces. Our aim is to
improve the classical AODV in order to minimize the packet forwarding delay, which will lead as
a consequence, to an increased efficiency in data transmission.

Improving AODV by scalarization: using weighted sum WS-AODV:

For implementing the multi-objective approach for improving the routing process in a wireless
sensor network, we have adopted the most straightforward scalarization approach, the
weighted sum algorithm, due to its clean design and low requirements when it comes to CPU
capabilities.

As we previously stated, improving a routing protocol means finding the optimum solution that
will accommodate the needs of a wireless sensor network deployed for a specific application.

As our project focuses on area monitoring, we are interested in different types of responses the
sensor nodes can provide: one is either interested in fast response, in case of natural disaster
(the delay factor being the crucial parameter that needs to be improved), either in monitoring
over time a set of parameters (i.e. climate changes) and simultaneously preserving battery life.

As the objectives we are trying to improve are conflicting, an independent approach will not
give us proper results. We have decided therefore to follow the approach of weighted sum.

The weighted sum method introduces a function that has to be minimized in order to obtain
the desired results. Weighted sum function is F= i (ai ∗ Fi), where:

 ai represent weighted factors, i ai=1;

 Fi are the cost functions, Fi =Pi/P0i, Pi Є {end-to-end delay, packet loss, energy
consumption}, i Є {1, 2, 3}, P0i=normalizing factor.

The cost functions are normalized values, and they represent the parameter we monitor,
divided by a normalizing factor which we chose according to the application.

Setting the weights

These weights will be set when the network is deployed for a specific area of monitoring,
therefore, for emergency cases (as earthquake monitoring), we will assign the highest weight to
end-to-end delay, as for the case of a simple monitoring (as climate changes), we will assign a
lower priority (or weight) to parameters as delay or packet loss and a higher weight to energy
consumption.

This assignment is done prior to enabling the routing protocol, and will not change during the
routing process, in order to assure the optimum level of integrity of the results obtained.

Also, the normalization factors for modeling the three cost function should be set according to
the application, with the respect of the number of available bits in the control messages.
 5. Business perspective

By looking into the WSN market today, it is clear that there is a high potential for innovation
and development. More specific in area monitoring and natural disaster management, the
demand of market is high, still the current technology is expensive and the variety is low. By
mentioning these facts, it is feasible to point out WSN in natural disaster management, as a
successful prospect which has a lot to offer. The market demand within WSN protocols is
nowadays based on factors such as; power consumption, user friendliness, ease of use and
inexpensive implementation. A plan for designing a clever protocol which can be used in
existing and coming sensors is the proposal of implementing a business idea which could be
sold as an individual project. Talking about innovation and new ideas such as implementing a
smart WSN protocol, there are many ways that one implementer can use to reach its goal. One
of the tools is the economical support which could be covered by external investment. In this
project the final result is a protocol which should be used in wireless sensors. Since the product
is a peripheral good to the core product which is the sensor, there is therefore a need for co-
operation with sensor producers. The level of co-operation can be defined, as a connection
between one supplier to a provider. In this sense the designed protocol can be carried to a
producer which is already providing WSN goods to the market. A potential firm can be
mentioned as Danfoss which is investing on improvements within sensor products and
technologies. Another approach can be a longer business term plan in which the protocol
developer is taking one step further, and actualized its idea, by acquiring patent for the
protocol. This requires not just effort for implementing the new protocol and solution, but also
to analyze the existing patented protocols in the market. Choosing either of these approaches
requires knowledge about the success of final implementation. For this reason, the base ground
of this business perspective is to discover the balance in right business partners which can
promote the idea, but also a fine financial solution which can assure developer’s economical
advantage. This business strategy can be defined as being high-risk centered, but it is still
important to emphasize that a high market demand with a high empty-room for developments,
is the reason not to give up on future of this idea which is designing a WSN protocol that can
benefit natural disasters in terms of preventing, alarming, measuring and understanding these
disasters.
6. Conclusions