ABSTRACT
Sensor networks differ from traditional wired and wireless networks in terms of computation capabilities, energy, size, and memory. There are several challenges in other operative mechanisms such as localization, time synchronization, naming and addressing of nodes, and network coverage. This chapter addresses these challenges and outlines the physical layer design concepts along with the other operative mechanisms of various protocols. The technical developments in terms of communication are changing rapidly, and low-cost energy-efficient sensor nodes are required in wireless sensor networks. The demand of allocating and using the radio frequency spectra is rapidly growing due to the increasing number of wireless and mobile communication applications. The communication between wireless sensor nodes needs a radio connection as a physical layer in which energy is consumed when the radio sends or receives data. The traditional localization uses range measurement techniques such as trilateration, triangulation, and maximum likelihood multilateration.
