The Architecture and Characteristics of Wireless Sensor Network

As a novel information acquiring and processing technology, WSN (wireless sensor network) is made by the convergence of sensor, micro-electro-mechanism system and networks technologies. WSN consist of small nodes with sensing, computation and wireless communication capabilities. Various architectures have been developed for WSN, depending upon the requirement of application. WSN are used in different applications e.g. environmental monitoring, habitat monitoring, home automation, military application etc. In this paper we present the architecture and characteristics of WSN. As viewed from the existing work, the hot spots recent representative routing protocols are analyzed, and their characteristics and application areas are compared. Finally, the future research issues in this area are pointed out.