Comprehensive Review of Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are attracting great interest in a number of application domains concerned with monitoring and control of physical phenomena, as they enable dense and boundless deployments at low-cost and with excellent flexibility. Extensive usage of WSN is the reason of development of any routing protocols. The main contribution of this article is an extensive survey and classification of the routing protocols in WSN. Routing protocols are classified under seven categories (Location-Based, Data Centric, Hierarchical-Based, Mobility-Based, Multipath-Based, Heterogeneity based and Quality of Service (QoS)-Based.). Each protocol is described and discussed with advantage and disadvantages. The challenges faced by WSN are also mentioned in this paper and finally to set the milestone for future work. For researchers, this paper serves as a starting point into research in designing routing protocols for WSNs effectively and efficiently. Any reader who is interested in improving their knowledge of the technical concepts will find a list of references and recent publications at the end of this paper.