A Step towards Standardization of Wireless Sensor Networks: A Layered Protocol Architecture Perspective

Unlike the Internet, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have yet to result in wide deployment in the real world. The unique properties of wireless communication including mobility, rapidly changing and unpredictable link quality, limited resources in terms of computation and energy, opportunistic exploitation, environmental obstructions, and new design paradigms motivates to divert from traditional layered architectures. At the same time, "plug and play" like features of the layered architecture which resulted in wide range deployment of the systems are required. In this paper we focus on the layered protocol architecture for WSNs, which provides the benefits of traditional layered architectures (interoperability) as well as focuses on cross layer design to leverage from the benefits offered by the unique wireless communication properties.