Sensor Network

A sensor network comprises a group of tiny, typically battery-powered devices and wireless

infrastructure that monitor and record conditions in any number of environments -- from the factory floor
to the data center to a hospital lab and even out in the wild. The sensor network connects to the Internet,
an enterprise WAN or LAN, or a specialized industrial network so that collected data can be transmitted
to back-end systems for analysis and used in applications.

A Wireless sensor network is a network of devices that can communicate the information
gathered from a monitored field through wireless links. The data is forwarded through multiple
nodes, and with a gateway, the data is connected to other networks like wireless Ethernet.

Types of wireless Sensor Networks

Depending on the environment, the types of networks are decided so that those can be deployed
underwater, underground, on land, and so on. Different types of WSNs include:
1. Terrestrial WSNs
2. Underground WSNs
3. Underwater WSNs
4. Multimedia WSNs
5. Mobile WSNs

1. Terrestrial WSNs
Terrestrial WSNs are capable of communicating base stations efficiently, and consist of
hundreds to thousands of wireless sensor nodes deployed either in unstructured (ad hoc) or
structured (Preplanned) manner. In an unstructured mode, the sensor nodes are randomly
distributed within the target area that is dropped from a fixed plane. The preplanned or structured
mode considers optimal placement, grid placement, and 2D, 3D placement models.

In this WSN, the battery power is limited; however, the battery is equipped with solar cells as a
secondary power source. The Energy conservation of these WSNs is achieved by using low duty
cycle operations, minimizing delays, and optimal routing, and so on.

2. Underground WSNs
The underground wireless sensor networks are more expensive than the terrestrial WSNs in
terms of deployment, maintenance, and equipment cost considerations and careful planning. The
WSNs networks consist of a number of sensor nodes that are hidden in the ground to monitor
underground conditions. To relay information from the sensor nodes to the base station,
additional sink nodes are located above the ground.
The underground wireless sensor networks deployed into the ground are difficult to recharge.
The sensor battery nodes equipped with a limited battery power are difficult to recharge. In
addition to this, the underground environment makes wireless communication a challenge due to
high level of attenuation and signal loss.

3. Under Water WSNs

More than 70% of the earth is occupied with water. These networks consist of a number of
sensor nodes and vehicles deployed under water. Autonomous underwater vehicles are used for
gathering data from these sensor nodes. A challenge of underwater communication is a long
propagation delay, and bandwidth and sensor failures.

Under water WSNs are equipped with a limited battery that cannot be recharged or replaced. The
issue of energy conservation for under water WSNs involves the development of underwater
communication and networking techniques.

4. Multimedia WSNs
Multimedia wireless sensor networks have been proposed to enable tracking and monitoring of
events in the form of multimedia, such as imaging, video, and audio. These networks consist of
low-cost sensor nodes equipped with microphones and cameras. These nodes are interconnected
with each other over a wireless connection for data compression, data retrieval and correlation.
The challenges with the multimedia WSN include high energy consumption, high bandwidth
requirements, data processing and compressing techniques. In addition to this, multimedia
contents require high bandwidth for the contents to be delivered properly and easily.

5. Mobile WSNs
These networks consist of a collection of sensor nodes that can be moved on their own and can
be interacted with the physical environment. The mobile nodes have the ability to compute sense
and communicate.

The mobile wireless sensor networks are much more versatile than the static sensor networks.
The advantages of MWSN over the static wireless sensor networks include better and improved
coverage, better energy efficiency, superior channel capacity, and so on.

WSN Network Topologies

For radio communication networks, the structure of a WSN includes various topologies like the
ones given below.

Star Topologies
Star topology is a communication topology, where each node connects directly to a gateway. A
single gateway can send or receive a message to a number of remote nodes. In star topologies,
the nodes are not permitted to send messages to each other. This allows low-latency
communications between the remote node and the gateway (base station).
Due to its dependency on a single node to manage the network, the gateway must be within the
radio transmission range of all the individual nodes. The advantage includes the ability to keep
the remote nodes’ power consumption to a minimum and simply under control. The size of the
network depends on the number of connections made to the hub.

Tree Topologies
Tree topology is also called as cascaded star topology. In tree topologies, each node connects to a
node that is placed higher in the tree, and then to the gateway. The main advantage of the tree
topology is that the expansion of a network can be easily possible, and also error detection
becomes easy. The disadvantage with this network is that it relies heavily on the bus cable; if it
breaks, all the network will collapse.

Mesh Topologies
The Mesh topologies allow transmission of data from one node to another, which is within its
radio transmission range. If a node wants to send a message to another node, which is out of
radio communication range, it needs an intermediate node to forward the message to the desired
node. The advantage with this mesh topology includes easy isolation and detection of faults in
the network. The disadvantage is that the network is large and requires huge investment.
Limitations of Wireless Sensor Networks
1. Possess very little storage capacity – a few hundred kilobytes
2. Possess modest processing power-8MHz
3. Works in short communication range – consumes a lot of power
4. Requires minimal energy – constrains protocols
5. Have batteries with a finite life time
6. Passive devices provide little energy
What is 5G?
5G is the next generation of mobile broadband that will eventually replace, or at
least augment, your 4G LTE connection. With 5G, you’ll see exponentially faster
download and upload speeds. Latency, or the time it takes devices to
communicate with wireless networks, will also drastically decrease.

How it works?
Unlike LTE, 5G operates on three different spectrum bands. While this may not seem important,
it will have a dramatic effect on your everyday use.
Low-band spectrum can also be described as a sub-1GHz spectrum. It’s the primary band used
by carriers in the U.S. for LTE, and bandwidth is nearly depleted. While low-band spectrum
offers great coverage area and wall penetration, there is a big drawback: Peak data speeds will
top out around 100Mbps.

T-Mobile is the key player when it comes to low-band spectrum. The carrier picked up a massive
amount of 600MHz spectrum at a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction in 2017
and is using it to quickly build out its nationwide 5G network.

Mid-band spectrum provides faster speeds and lower latency than low-band. It does, however,
fail to penetrate buildings as effectively as low-band spectrum. Expect peak speeds up to 1Gbps
on mid-band spectrum.

Sprint has the majority of unused mid-band spectrum in the U.S. The carrier is using Massive
MIMO to improve penetration and coverage area on the mid-band. Massive MIMO groups
multiple antennas onto a single box, and at a single cell tower, to create multiple simultaneous
beams to different users. Sprint will also use Beamforming to bolster 5G service on the mid-
band. This sends a single focused signal to every user in the cell, and systems using it to monitor
each user to make sure they have a consistent signal.

High-band spectrum is what delivers the highest performance for 5G, but with major
weaknesses. It is often referred to as mmWave. High-band spectrum can offer peak speeds up to
10Gbps and has extremely low latency. The main drawback of high-band is that it has low
coverage area and building penetration is poor.

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are all rolling out high-band spectrum. 5G coverage for the
carriers will piggyback off LTE while they work to build out nationwide networks. Since high-
band spectrum sacrifices building penetration and coverage area for high speed, it will rely on
many small cells. These are low-power base stations that cover small geographic areas and can
be combined with beamforming to bolster coverage.

Advantages of 5G technology
There are several advantages of 5G technology, some of the advantages have been shown in the
above Ericsson image, and many others are described below −
 High resolution and bi-directional large bandwidth shaping.
 Technology to gather all networks on one platform.
 More effective and efficient.
 Technology to facilitate subscriber supervision tools for the quick action.
 Most likely, will provide a huge broadcasting data (in Gigabit), which will support more
than 60,000 connections.
  Easily manageable with the previous generations.
 Technological sound to support heterogeneous services (including private network).
 Possible to provide uniform, uninterrupted, and consistent connectivity across the world.

Disadvantages of 5G Technology
Though, 5G technology is researched and conceptualized to solve all radio signal problems and
hardship of mobile world, but because of some security reason and lack of technological
advancement in most of the geographic regions, it has following shortcomings −
 Technology is still under process and research on its viability is going on.
 The speed, this technology is claiming seems difficult to achieve (in future, it might be)
because of the incompetent technological support in most parts of the world.

 Many of the old devices would not be competent to 5G, hence, all of them need to be
replaced with new one — expensive deal.
 Developing infrastructure needs high cost.
 Security and privacy issue yet to be solved.

References:
1. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/5g/5g_advantages_disadvantages.htm
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_sensor_network
4. https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/What-is-a-sensor-network