This brief provides an overview of recent developments in multi-hop routing protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). It introduces the various classifications of routing protocols and lists the pros and cons of each category, going beyond the conceptual overview of routing classifications offered in other books. Recently many researchers have proposed numerous multi-hop routing protocols and thereby created a need for a book that provides its readers with an up-to-date road map of this research paradigm. The authors present some of the most relevant results achieved by applying an algorithmic approach to the research on multi-hop routing protocols. The book covers measurements, experiences and lessons learned from the implementation of multi-hop communication prototypes. Furthermore, it describes future research challenges and as such serves as a useful guide for students and researchers alike.

Wireless sensor Networks: Vehicle and Space Applications describes the practical perspectives in using wireless sensor networks (WSN) to develop real world applications that can be used for space exploration. These applications include sensor interfaces, remote wireless vehicles, space crew health monitoring and instrumentation. The material discusses how applications of WSN originally developed for space travel and exploration are being applied and used in multiple real world applications, allowing for the development of smart systems that have characteristics such as self healing, self diagnosis, and emergency healthcare notification.

This book provides a comprehensive yet easy coverage of ad hoc and sensor networks and fills the gap of existing literature in this growing field. It emphasizes that there is a major interdependence among various layers of the network protocol stack. Contrary to wired or even one-hop cellular networks, the lack of a fixed infrastructure, the inherent mobility, the wireless channel, and the underlying routing mechanism by ad hoc and sensor networks introduce a number of technological challenges that are difficult to address within the boundaries of a single protocol layer. All existing textbooks on the subject often focus on a specific aspect of the technology, and fail to provide critical insights on cross-layer interdependencies. To fully understand these intriguing networks, one need to grasp specific solutions individually, and also the many interdependencies and cross-layer interactions.

Due to significant advantages, including convenience, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the implementation and use of wireless ad hoc and sensor networks have achieved steep growth in recent years. This book presents the advances made in these popular technologies, providing expert guidance to practitioners and researchers in the field.

This book introduces a new explanatory cross-layer model specifically designed to understand all aspects of ad hoc and sensor networking, from design through performance issues to application requirements. Future directions, challenges and potential simulation projects are also discussed. The topics included represent a significant portion of what is going on in academia and industry. The vast materials provided will enable readers to not only understand and position themselves in this hot area, but also to develop new capabilities, enhance skills, share expertise, consolidate knowledge and design future solutions. Thus, the book is useful for researchers and engineers, and anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of this growing field and wishes to pursue it as a future research topic.

This dissertation presents methods of extending the network lifetime of multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs) through routing that uses cooperative transmission (CT), referred to as cooperative routing. CT can have a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) advantage over non-CT schemes through cooperative diversity and simple aggregation of transmit power, and one of its abilities is to extend the communication range of a wireless device using this SNR advantage. In this research, we use the range-extension ability of CT as a tool to mitigate the energy-hole problem of multi-hop WSNs and extend the network lifetime. The main contributions of this research are (i) an analytical model for a cooperative routing protocol with a deployment method, (ii) cooperative routing protocols that can extend the network lifetime, and (iii) formulating the lifetime-optimization problem for cooperative routing. The analytical model developed in this research theoretically proves that, in a situation where non-CT routing cannot avoid the energy-hole problem, our CT method can solve the problem. PROTECT, a CT method based on the analytical model, provides a very simple way of doing cooperative routing and can improve the lifetime of non-CT networks significantly. REACT, a cooperative routing protocol that uses the energy information of nodes, overcomes some of the limitations of PROTECT and can be applied to any existing non-CT routing protocol to improve the network lifetime. Using REACT and analytical approaches, we also show that cooperative routing can be beneficial in multi-hop energy-harvesting WSNs. By formulating and solving the lifetime-optimization problem of cooperative routing, which requires a much more sophisticated formulation than that of non-CT routing, we explore the optimal lifetime bounds and behaviors of cooperative routing. Finally, we study and design online cooperative routing methods that can perform close to the optimal cooperative routing.