WSN Network Architecture

Lecture Two
Wireless Sensor Net¬works
2nd class
Dr. Mehdi Ebady Manaa

WSN NETWORK ARCHITECTURES
AND PROTOCOL STACK

Sensing is a technique used to gather information about a physical object or process, including the occurrence of events (i.e., changes in state such as a drop in temperature or pressure). An object performing such a sensing task is called a sensor. For example, the human body is equipped with sensors that are able to capture optical information from the environment (eyes), acoustic information such as sounds (ears), and smells (nose). These are examples of remote sensors, that is, they do not need to touch the monitored object to gather information.

A sensor is a device that translates parameters or events in the physical world into signals that can be measured and analyzed. Another commonly used term is transducer, which is often used to describe a device that converts energy from one form into another. A sensor, then, is a type of transducer that converts energy in the physical world into electrical energy that can be passed to a computing system or controller. Figure (1) shows a typical wireless sensor network setup with central monitoring.