Analysis and Comparative Study of Data

Communication Protocols in Wireless Sensor

Networks*
1st Tuğba METIN 2nd Mohamad SAVAS 3rd Mehmet TURAN
dept. Computer Engineering dept. Computer Engineering dept. Computer Engineering
Yildiz Technical University Yildiz Technical University Yildiz Technical University
Istanbul, Turkey Istanbul, Turkey Istanbul, Turkey
f0120090@std.yildiz.edu.tr f0120066@std.yildiz.edu.tr f0120052@std.yildiz.edu.tr

Abstract—Nowadays, there are many developments in com- also some challenges and hurdles regarding WSNs. Challenges
munication technologies. Wireless sensor network is one of the briefly include:
important technology on communication, which eliminates use of
• Limited functional capabilities, including problems of
cables for communication. Sensor networks used in wide range
of automated applications with the increasing popularity day by size
day. However, energy consumption, coverage, data security and • Power factors
integrity are main concern of sensor networks. • Node costs
Index Terms—Wireless Sensor Networks, Protocols, Data Com- • Environmental factors
munication.
• Transmission channel factors
• Topology management complexity and node distribution
I. I NTRODUCTION • Standards versus proprietary solutions
• Scalability concerns [12]
Wireless Sensor Network is a kind of wireless network Wireless Sensor Network has a wide application
consist of large number and small size of circulating sink area.Application areas can be mainly ordered as health,
nodes (also called base stations) that aims to interact with military, environmental and home. Other commercial areas
environments. These nodes generate and process data and are included too. Besides all these application areas, wireless
communicate with other sensor nodes. The nodes connected sensor networks can be used where wireline systems cannot
to one central location called central base station [1]. WSNs be applicable. Additionally, it is aimed to use these sensors
are used to control and monitor the parameters of an area to increase lifetime and improve performance of commercial
such as humidity, vibration, sound, temperature, pressure, wind products by integrating sensors to them. Furthermore,
direction and speed, sound intensity, pollution level and vital behavior of sensor when nodes on running out of energy
body functions. A sensor node can behave as data originator or when communication between nodes are permanently
and data router. A sink collects all data from sensors. It interrupted. Namely, how to tolerate unfavorable conditions
may communicate with the end-user over direct connections, in sensor networks. Among the users and developers, wireless
internet, satellite or any type of wireless links. All the collected sensor network is a very popular technology. The developers
data by the sensors are organized and transferred to the base have developed new applications by using WSN with the
station [1]. WSNs contain some advantages, disadvantages and motivation of making a human life easier and comfortable.
challenges to become truly ubiquitous. One of the advantages There are numerous use and property of sensor networks.
that it count for WSN is its flexibility. It is easily adaptable In this paper, some of the data communication protocols
to the changes. The other advantage is the requirement of have been focused in wireless sensor networks and made a
additional new device. WSN can easily accommodate new comparison in between under the headings of radio frequency,
devices in the network any time. On the other hand, WSN network topology, data rate, range and power usage.
is cost saving and beneficial for society. Subsequently, one of
the disadvantages of WSN can be represented in its security. II. R ELATED W ORKS
WSN networks are not secure if they are compared with In this section, there have been many studies. Some of
wired networks. It is open to hackers. The battery issue is these studies are summarized and listed according to stated
another disadvantage as its battery life of the nodes is very protocol. These studies cover descriptive and comparative
low. That is why, charging nodes regularly is very important. analysis of different protocols. Saad et al [2], they aims to
Low communication speed and distraction can be told as other present a solution of problems caused by wrong selection
disadvantages of WSN. Beyond the disadvantages, there are criteria for preferable wireless communication technology.
Different wireless technologies are compared by focusing on Each sensor node mainly has a micro-controller, transceiver,
performance according to usage area. By considering findings, external memory, power source as well as one or more sensors.
an engineer or developer can decide optimal mode to operate Sensor nodes are portable, lightweight and very small size as
and integrate in terms of minimizing energy consumption, shows in Figure 2.
time constraints, implementation cost and quality of commu-
nication. An et al [3], they designed a gateway controller for
smart home by using Z-Wave protocol. In order to control their
performance of the gate the researcher developed an Android
application and two sockets with door sensor, which can be
managed to perform on/off functions remotely. To evaluate
the performance of their design they compare execution time
of opening/closing operation of door. Another research [4] Fig. 2. Typical architecture of the sensor node.
proved feasibility gateway using a prototype by designing
and implementing a gateway controller for Z-Wave. Perfor- Based on the environment, there are different WSNs types.
mance analysis of proposed method carried out by analysis They are Terrestrial WSNs, Underground WSNs, Underwater
of execution time. Additionally, limitations of Z-Wave were WSNs, Multimedia WSNs, and Mobile WSNs as shown in
discussed based on experience. In [14], the most used wireless Figure 3. The most common WSN architecture follows OSI
networks among Bluetooth, UWB, ZigBee and Wi-Fi are architecture model. This architecture –especially in sensors-
studied. They reviewed the main characteristics based on the has five layers, which are application, transport, data link, net-
efficiency of data coding, the delay of transmission and energy work, and physical layers. Except layers, the architecture has
consumption. They concluded that ZigBee is taking more time three cross-layers, and they are namely power management,
than others but it is still better suited approach for mobile mobility management, and task management. The purpose of
applications at battery-operated WSNs. In another study [15], the usage of these layers is making the sensors work together
researchers worked on the performance of 6LoWPAN and to increase the complete efficiency of the network.
ZigBee protocols for high-speed industrial networks. They
reached the result of the ZigBee network is capable of handling
shorter run cycles, generating maximum end-to-end delays
and update times slightly below the theoretical values of
6LowPAN. Other than this, 6LoWPAN network has medium
end-to-end delays and higher reliability. Wi-Fi technology has
been used in many aspects such as the automation of home
[13]. The system consists of server, hardware represented by
controller and set of sensors. All the system is connected to
the cloud so that the data collected from sensors and other Fig. 3. Generic protocol stack for sensor networks.
home utilities are sent to the cloud [13].

III. DATA C OMMUNICATION P ROTOCOLS B. WSN Protocols

There are a large number of data communication protocols
Each data communication protocol has its own specification in groups for WSN, and each have different capability of
and all of them have emerged from reasonable purpose. technical features (data range, security, speed, etc). From past
to present, all these protocols were developed for answering
A. Wireless Sensor Network Architecture different mobility, power consumption, bandwidth, connectiv-
WSN is composed of many autonomous linked sensor ity requirements and collecting different kinds of data from
nodes that are spread in sensor area. However, each node has wide range of sensors. In this chapter, some particular data
capabilities to gather data and send to sink node as depicted communication protocols have been looked over from 802.15
in Figure.1. Design of sensor nodes effected by many factors, working group of the IEEE standard committee as well as
such as medium, fault tolerance, cost, power consumption and Cellular standards and Z-Wave in order to provide an overview
so on. of their characteristics and make a general comparison of those
protocols at the end.
1) Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi stands for Wireless Fidelity [4], and it
gives the accuracy measurement for the signal. Wi-Fi also
defines the distance that wireless signal can reach and the data
that can be transmitted [4]. Wi-Fi has standards, which are
set according to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers). However, there are two main factors for each
Fig. 1. Wireless Sensor Network. standard as shown in Table-1 [4].
 TABLE I their low power usage and low computing requirements, they
W I -F I S TANDARDS mostly keep themselves in sleep mode. ZigBee devices battery
life can extend to many years with the sleep mode. These
Wi-Fi Standard Speed Mbps Frequency GHz Popularity devices cannot communicate with each other directly and
802.11a 24 5 Not popular they require a single ZigBee Network Coordinator. ZigBee
802.11g 54 2.4 Most popular Network Coordinator devices are responsible for the startup
802.11n 100 2.5 Common standard
and the management of the network. It keeps the information
about the nodes, network frequency, etc. Though a single
ZigBee network can extend up to 255 nodes with the help
2) Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a wireless technology that con- of connecting different Coordinator devices this number can
nected wireless devices and enables the exchange between be increased up to 65,535 nodes. With these features, ZigBee
them [5]. Bluetooth technology is used in the emergency provides the best scalability among the other WSN protocols.
assistance system. This system has two Bluetooth connections, [7] [8] [9]
which are separated. The first connection is set to send the 4) 6LoWPAN: 6LoWPAN is also based on the IEEE
signal comes from the vehicle crash sensor and the second 802.15.4 standard. It uses IEEE 802.15.4 for physical and the
connection enables the transition between the emergency sta- data link layers in the protocol stack. On top of the IEEE
tion and the cellular that contains the Bluetooth. [5] Bluetooth 802.15.4 layer, there is a LoWPAN adaption layer. LoWPAN
provides transferring files for short distances yet the security adaptation layer is the main layer of 6LoWPAN technology;
level for this protocol is still weak. Bluetooth 5.0 sends small it enables the interoperability between IPv6 and LoWPAN
amount of the data with high security and these data are sent networks. For the transport layer, it uses UDP and ICMP.
with low power. Therefore, it is known as Bluetooth Low 6LoWPAN is the first standard that enables wireless embedded
Energy and it is used to assist the traffic lighting system to devices to the internet, which is considered as the enabling
avoid the non-balanced happens between the light signals of technology for the Internet of Things (IoT). [7] [8] [9]
the roads and the traffic [6].
3) ZigBee : ZigBee is a standard that is used in Wireless
Sensor Networks. ZigBee is mostly preferred in home automa-
tion and Personal Health Care domains. ZigBee protocol’s
key features are its low cost, low power, and ease of use
and control. ZigBee protocol is also a reliable protocol. It Fig. 5. Generic protocol stack for sensor networks.
uses end-to-end acknowledgments to retransmit lost packets.
ZigBee protocol was founded by the ZigBee alliance and built Integration with IP based networks makes 6LoWPAN net-
on top of the existing IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It actually uses works highly scalable and increased mobility. The most com-
different frequencies depending on the country and application mon usage of the 6LoWPAN protocol is Industrial Monitoring,
types. For instance globally 2.4 GHz, 915 MHz in North Supply Chain Management, Health Care, and Disaster Man-
America, and 866 MHz in Europe. ZigBee uses IEEE 802.15.4 agement. [7]
standards physical and MAC layer implementation. Network 5) Cellular: By the cellular technology, there has been a
Layer and Application Layer of ZigBee protocol stack are big change in how people communicate. Before this technol-
specific to ZigBee. [7] [8] ogy, very few people used wireless communication. Wireless
communication tools are now used by billions of people. In
parallel with the use of this technology by people, there have
been many developments in this area. GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G
and LTE, are known concept for cellular technology. They are
deployed by mobile service provider to supply higher data rate.
GSM, The Global System for Mobile Communications is a
system that establish direct connection between two users. This
system used for transmitting voice data services and it was
developed as a digital system [10]. GPRS is another concept
that aims to provide internet access to GSM. After a short time,
EDGE was emerged for higher data rate without any change in
access protocol [11]. These developments are considered as a
Fig. 4. ZigBee Protocol Stack. stepping-stone towards 3G. So EDGE is also known as 2.5G.
3G technology, the next cellular technology, has brought many
A common ZigBee network generally consists of ZigBee changes in the mobile industry. This technology requires new
End Devices and ZigBee Network Coordinator and ZigBee infrastructure because GSM networks were not compatible
Routers. Generally, sensors on a ZigBee network represents with the existing GSM structure. After this stage, telecom
ZigBee End Devices. Those devices mainly outcome with operators take into account the increasing demand and place
new towers next to the GSM towers [10]. Additionally, users TABLE III
must have phones with 3G support to take advantage of this C OMPARISON OF P ROTOCOLS -2
technology. With the advances in 3g technology, faster data Range Power Usage Topology
transmission was achieved by HDSPA and HSPA+ [2]. The lat- up to 90 m Low Piconet Mesh
est technology that would be included under this topic is LTE, up to a km Medium Star
which means Long Term Evolution. This technology is also up to 90 m Low Mesh Star Cluster
up to 100m Moderate Star Mesh
known as real 4G. Like other technologies, this technology up to 30m Low Mesh
provide better data rates compared to the previous one [10]. A several kms High Star
significant increase in the performance of existing applications several kms High Star
several kms High Star
has been observed depending on the data rate of LTE [10]. several kms Moderate Star
However, LTE-A or LTE Advanced, which is upgraded version
of LTE increase speed, stability and bandwidth of LTE with
higher spectral efficiency [10].
(GPRS, EDGE, 3G, LTE) and Z-Wave protocols have been
6) Z-Wave: Technological transformation in all areas of
done based on their aspects of power use, data rate, frequency,
life also affects habits of people. Nowadays, Smart home
range and network topology. Wireless sensor networks has
technologies has become more popular. Trends are from
been reached high usage area by taking more place in daily
wired system to wireless system. Currently, there are many
life in the near future. Studies on this issue, especially in the
systems that use wireless protocol in home automation system.
academic field, are increasing day by day. Each protocol differs
Choosing the right protocol is very important to get the desired
according to its usage area and purpose. In order to decide
result. Z-wave is a one of these protocols for home automation
which protocol to use, priorities, needs, costs and our purpose
system. Z-wave is low-power wireless network protocol for
must be determined. It is clear that there are several challenges
smart home automation. This protocol is not compatible with
to facilitate choosing the right protocol.
the internet protocol (IP), so it cannot directly connect to
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