A Study of Optical Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks
Vishal Rajput, Digvijay Virpura, Nilesh Modi · PARIPEX-INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH · 2012
Wireless sensors nodes are made up of small electronic devices which are capable of sensing, computing and transmitting data from harsh physical environments like a surveillance field. These sensor nodes majorly depend on batteries for energy, which get depleted at a faster rate because of the computation and communication operations they have to perform. Communication protocols can be designed to make efficient utilization of energy resources of a sensor node and to obtain real time functionality.Recent advances in wireless sensor networks have led to many new protocols specifically designed for sensor net- works where energy awareness is an essential consideration. Most of the attention, however, has been given to the routing protocols since they might differ depending on the application and network architecture. This paper surveys recent routing protocols for sensor networks and presents a classification for the various approaches pursued. The three main categories explored in this paper are data-centric, hierarchical and location-based. Each routing protocol is de-scribed and discussed under the appropriate category. Moreover, protocols using contemporary methodologies such as network flow and quality of service modeling are also discussed. The paper concludes with open research issues.