Modelling QoS for wireless sensor networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless network composed of spatially distributed and tiny autonomous nodes — smart dust sensors, motes —, which cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions. Nowadays these kinds of networks support a wide range of applications, such as target tracking, security, environmental control, habitat monitoring, source detection, source localization, vehicular and traffic monitoring, health monitoring, building and industrial monitoring, etc. Generally, these applications have strong and strict requirements for end-to-end delaying and loosing during data transmissions. In this paper, we propose a realistic scenario for application of the WSN field in order to illustrate selection of an appropriate approach for guaranteeing performance in a WSN-deployed application. The methodology we have used includes four major phases: 1) Requirements analysis of the application scenario; 2) QoS modeling in different layers of the communications protocol stack and selection of more suitable QoS protocols and mechanisms; 3) Definition of a simulation model based on an application scenario, to which we applied the protocols and mechanisms selected in the phase 2; and 4) Validation of decisions by means of simulation and analysis of results. This work has been partially financed by the “Universidad Politecnica de Madrid” and the “ Comunidad de Madrid” in the framework of the project CRISAL - M0700204174.