ABSTRACT
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are spatially distributed autonomous sensors for monitoring physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, and pressure and for cooperatively passing their data through the network to a main location. The compressive sensing theory can be used for availing intra-temporal correlation. This chapter provides a brief overview of the WSN, its architecture, the associated wireless transmission technology, and protocols utilized along with the operating system being used for WSN. The main components of a sensor node are a microcontroller, transceiver, external memory, power source, and one or more sensors which formalize the sensor-node architecture. Transceiver circuitry enables the sensor mote to communicate with nearby units. The large-scale prevalence and sensitivity of the information collected by wireless sensor networks give rise to the final key challenge of ensuring both privacy and security. The key concern of protocol design in wireless sensor networks is energy consumption, as sensor nodes are battery powered.
