Cognitive Radio-based Wireless Sensor Networks As Next Generation Sensor Network: Concept, Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Research in Wireless Sensor Networks has witnessed a tremendous increase in the last two decades. Apart from military surveillance, wireless sensor network (WSN) have been deployed in the areas of healthcare monitoring, oil-field explorations, nuclear power plant monitoring, underwater activities surveillance, and geo-informatics. However, with the increased deployment of WSN using the unlicensed spectrum band (that is, the Industrial Scientific and Medical-ISM), there is an increasing demand for communication channels within this band due to over-crowding of the band. Critical issues in sensor networks is the need to minimize energy consumption without undermining the quality of service (QoS) provisioning of the network. With the paradigm shift in wireless communications towards Cognitive Radio (CR) technology, it is believed that the problem of scarce spectrum in the unlicensed bands, and short network lifetime rocking the WSN applications in the unlicensed band can be mitigated. In this paper, we present a Cognitive radio-based wireless sensor network (CRWSN), and propose a design concept for this relatively new sensor network paradigm. Also, we highlighted possible prospects and challenges associated with the development and deployment of this paradigm in sensor networks. This, we believe will pave way for the next-generation (NG) sensor network applications.