Network Structure Based Routing Techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks:A Comprehensive Survey

WSNs is rapidly changing the way by which data are captured, processed and disseminated for a variety of potential applications for home, hospitals, factory shop floors, road traffic, battlefields, and so on. As with any other new technological development, there exist many research issues and technical challenges relating to sensor nodes, networks and applications. Routing in sensor networks is a new area of research, with a limited, but rapidly growing set of research results. In this paper, we presented a comprehensive survey of routing techniques in wireless sensor networks which have been presented in the form of literature. They have the common objective of trying to extend the lifetime of the sensor network, while not compromising data delivery. Overall, the routing techniques are classified based on the network structure into three categories: Flat, hierarchical, and location based routing protocols. We also highlight the design tradeoffs between energy and communication overhead savings in some of the routing paradigm, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each routing technique.