Principle of Wireless Sensor Networks

This chapter starts with a description of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard on which most wireless sensor networks are based. Then, ZigBee based wireless sensor networks are introduced. Even though the ZigBee protocol consists of, from bottom to top, a physical layer, a Media Access Control (MAC) layer, a network layer, an application support sub-layer, and an application layer, our emphasis is on the upper three layers as there is little to concern WSN developers at the lowest two layers in the design and implementation of WSNs. Finally 6LowPAN based wireless sensor networks are presented, as they are the latest wireless sensor network protocol. A comparison of ZigBee and 6LowPAN forms a conclusion at the end of the chapter.