Bulk Data Dissemination in Low Power Sensor Networks: Present and Future Directions

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Wireless Communication
• Network Engineering

Background:

• Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are increasingly pervasive and data-intensive.
• Efficient and reliable data dissemination is crucial for WSN maintenance, management, and data distribution.
• Existing research offers various optimization techniques for WSN bulk data dissemination protocols.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art bulk data dissemination protocols in WSNs.
• To categorize existing literature based on optimization objectives: Reliability, Scalability, and Transmission/Energy efficiency.
• To identify and discuss future research directions for WSN data dissemination.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review and categorization of WSN bulk data dissemination protocols.
• Analysis of techniques used for optimizing reliability, scalability, and transmission/energy efficiency.
• Synthesis of key insights and identification of future research trends.

Main Results:

• The survey categorizes protocols by their optimization focus: Reliability, Scalability, and Transmission/Energy efficiency.
• Identified key findings for future directions in WSN data dissemination.
• Highlighted the need to exploit advances in wireless communications and address challenges in complex network environments.

Conclusions:

• Future WSN dissemination protocols can benefit from advancements in wireless communication technologies (e.g., interference management, error coding).
• Optimizing dissemination in multi-channel, multi-task, and opportunistic networks requires further research into spatial-temporal resource utilization.
• Ensuring co-existence of dissemination protocols with other network protocols, especially those involving MAC layer modifications, remains a significant challenge.