An overlook on routing techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of small nodes with sensing, computation, and wireless communications capabilities. Many routing, power management, and data dissemination protocols have been specifically designed for WSNs where energy awareness is an essential design issue. The focus, however, has been given to the routing protocols which might differ depending on the application and network architecture. In this paper, we first outline the design challenges for routing protocols in WSNs followed by a comprehensive comparison of different routing techniques. Overall, the routing techniques are classified into three categories based on the underlying network structure: flat, hierarchical, and location-based routing. Furthermore, these protocols can be classified into multipath-based, query-based, negotiation-based, QoS-based, and coherent-based depending on the protocol operation. The paper concludes with possible future research areas.