A Survey on the Implementation of Wireless Sensor Network Breadcrumb Trails for Sensing and Localization

Wireless sensor networks play a pivotal role in creating temporary communications capability in emergency situations, especially when existing communications network fail. For example, these networks could establish a communication channel between a first responder and a base station in a building where cell phone communications or GPS signals are unavailable. A breadcrumb network (a trail of communications nodes) plays a very crucial role in establishing the temporary communication. In this paper we identify various approaches for and benefits of creating breadcrumb networks. The two major types of breadcrumb networks are human deployable and self-deployable. These networks can also help in establishing communication paths to solve the problem of mapping and localization, either by themselves or with the help of some pre-existing network. In most of the work surveyed, the breadcrumbs are small battery operated wireless sensor motes operating at the 700 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequencies.