A Survey of Application Distribution in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are deployed to an area of interest to sense phenomena, process sensed data, and take actions accordingly. Due to the limited WSN node resources, distributed processing is required for completing application tasks. Proposals implementing distribution services for WSNs are evolving on different levels of generality. In this paper, these solutions are reviewed in order to determine the current status. According to the review, existing distribution technologies for computer networks are not applicable for WSNs. Operating systems (OSs) and middleware architectures for WSNs implement separate services for distribution within the existing constraints but an approach providing a complete distributed environment for applications is absent. In order to implement an efficient and adaptive environment, a middleware should be tightly integrated in the underlying OS. We recommend a framework in which a middleware distributes the application processing to a WSN so that the application lifetime is maximized. OS implements services for application tasks and information gathering as well as control interfaces for the middleware.