Data Dissemination Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks – a Survey

Abstract: A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a network made up of a large number of self-organizing nodes distributed in adhoc fashion. They are popularly used for monitoring and control of environment parameters. They are set up in remote locations to form a wireless communication system and it collects data samples for critical domains such as military, industry, environment etc. It is necessary to spread data and code through wireless links after the nodes are deployed in order to adjust parameters of sensors, update the sensor programs or distribute management commands to sensors. This is known as data dissemination or reprogramming in WSNs. Dissemination protocols are vital because almost all WSNs are deployed in hostile environments and thus manual reprogramming of such nodes is not possible. Many data dissemination protocols have been introduced with time and each one of them help in dissemination of program code, configuration parameters, queries, commands, bulk data etc.

Keywords: Dissemination, Reprogramming, Wireless Sensor Networks, Trickle, protocols.