A framework for Wireless Sensor Networks performance monitoring

A new generation of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is expanding to performance critical environments. In these new scenarios, performance must be monitored and effectively measured, in order to guarantee that the network fulfills initial expectations. However, measuring performance in WSN has not the same requirements as measuring performance in traditional networks. While new specific WSN metrics have been proposed to cope with the new specific needs of these networks, a global performance framework for evaluating WSN does not yet exist. In this paper, WSN specific communication performance needs are analyzed and, to measure them, an initial approach to a global framework of WSN performance metrics is proposed. These metrics are intended to evaluate the real-time performance of a WSN, providing the necessary measurements to indicate if the QoS expectations are being met.