Energy efficient intelligent cluster based routing techniques for wireless sensor networks

INTRODUCTION

1.1 WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a network consisting of a large

number of tiny nodes called sensors which are organized in an ad hoc

manner. A sensor node has fundamental parts namely memory, a transceiver,

a processing unit, a sensing unit, and a power supply. The radio transceiver

transmits and receives the radio signal from sensor nodes that are under its

transmission range and the processing unit is to process the incoming signal

and it performs the necessary actions to forward the radio signals. Each sensor

has equal sensing capability which senses the environmental conditions such as

sound, pressure, and temperature. It is mainly used in military applications such as

battlefield surveillance, forest fire detection, industrial process monitoring, and

agricultural irrigation management where human risk is high. Wireless

sensors are used to acquire data from different environments such as civilian

applications, tracking, seismic measurements, and monitoring applications in

order to take necessary actions or to prevent disasters.