SNAG: A Collaborative Routing Architecture for Sensor-Based Information at SMS Gateway in Cellular Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) provide real-time monitored data related to certain phenomenon which can be critical in dealing with emergency situations. In these applications, timely and swift provision of data to the end users is of utmost importance. The end users can be situated far from the location of sensor networks in which case sensor data provision must rely on existing infrastructure networks. We consider cellular networks as the most suitable means for swift and reliable services of Sensor-Based Information (SBI) provision to a large number of end users. In this paper we present SNAG, a functional Architecture built upon the existing cellular network architecture, for rapid provision of SBI from WSN server to Mobile Station (MS) through Short Message Service Center (SMSC). The SBI is in the form of a text message named (seNsor Message Service (NMS) analogous to Short Message Service (SMS) of the cellular networks (2G till 5G). On the WSN server side, SNAG receives, classifies, prioritizes and packetizes egress sensory data. At the SMSC-end, these NMS packets subsequently process concomitant to SMSs. For ingress traffic from mobile subscribers to WSN, SNAG implements SMS content analyzer at SMSC that separates mobile-to-WSN traffic from mobile-to-mobile or mobile-to-telecom SMSs. Our performance evaluation results show that SNAG queues do not over-burden the SMSC and packet loss probability is also negligibly low.