Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing Approach

Citation

Mytum-Smithson, J. (2005), "Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing Approach", Sensor Review, Vol. 25 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sr.2005.08725bae.001

Wireless Sensor Networks: An Information Processing Approach

Feng Zhao and Leonidas Guibas376 pp.1-55860-914-8£44.95http://books.elsevier.com/bookscat/links/details.asp?isbn=1558609148

Keywords: Sensors, Books

Wireless sensor networks are an important, growing area of technology. A number of new books on this subject have been recently published. This book by Zhao and Guibas provides a broad treatment of wireless sensor networks and focuses on the information processing aspects for the design, implementation and operation of such networking architectures. The material covers some important topics such as: network discovery, service establishment, routing, software development, performance optimisation and network configuration. The unifying theme is the information processing approach for such networks. There is a chapter on sensor network platforms and tools. The final chapter discusses the applications and future directions for wireless sensor networks.

This book is relevant to many application areas, including: industrial automation, process control, automotive, environmental monitoring, military etc. Individual topics, such as data communication approaches, signal processing, distributed databases, embedded operating systems, reasoning algorithms, etc. are treated in a way that helps to understand how such topics can be integrated into the sensor network design.

The book is aimed at industry researchers who are interested in developing wireless sensor network architectures. The book was developed from a university course at Stanford University, USA. The content is suitable material for advanced technical courses. The practising engineer will need to have an educational background in a discipline such as electronic, computer or communications engineering, as many of the topics are introduced with some mathematical formulae relating to linear algebra, data communications protocols and computer science.

All in all this is a worthwhile book. In an era where we are seeing a number of technical books emerging in this exciting technology discipline of wireless sensor networks, this book addresses an important niche area in the information processing space.

Donal HeffernanUniversity of Limerick, Ireland