● Hierarchical Routing

● Negotiation Based Routing

● Query Based Routing
 ● Categories Of WSN routing

Categories of routing protocols

To transmit data in sensor networks, two techniques are being used. The one is
referred to as Flooding and the other one is gossiping protocol. There is no need to use
any routing algorithm and maintenance of topology. In the flooding protocol, upon
reception of a data packet by sensor nodes, this data packet is broadcast to all other
neighbors. The process of broadcasting is continued till any one of the two following
conditions is satisfied; the packet has successfully reached its destination. And the
second condition is; the maximum number of hops of a packet has reached.

The main advantages of flooding are ease of implementation and simplicity. The
drawbacks are blindness of resources and overlapping and implosion. The gossiping
protocol is a somewhat advanced version of the flooding protocol. In the gossiping
protocol, the sensor node, which is getting a data packet, transmits it to the selected
neighbor. At the next turn, the sensing nodes again randomly pick another node and
send data to it. This process continues again and again. Broadcasting is not used in
gossiping protocol as it was used in flooding. In this way, implosion issues can be
avoided easily. But delay is enhanced in this way.

5.1. Route discovery-based routing protocols

Routing protocols are classified based on the process they used to discover the routes.

5.1.1. Reactive protocols

Reactive routing protocols do not maintain the whole network topology; they are
activated just on demand when any node wants to send data to any other node. So the
routes are created on demand when queries are initiated.

5.1.2. Proactive protocols

They are also known as table-driven routing protocols because they maintain the
routing tables for the complete network by passing the network information from node
to node and the routes are pre-defined before their use and even when there is no
traffic flow.

5.1.3. Hybrid routing protocols

Hybrid Routing Protocols have the merits of proactive and reactive routing protocols
by neglecting their demerits.
5.2. Network organization-based routing protocols
The following protocols are based on the network organization of the wireless sensor
network.

5.2.1. Flat topology

Flat topology treats all nodes equally. Flat topology is mainly for homogeneous
networks where all nodes are of the same characteristics and have the same
functionality. Examples are:

● Gradient-based routing (GBR)

● Cougar
● Constrained anisotropic diffusion routing (CADR)
● Rumor routing (RR)

5.2.2. Hierarchical-based routing

Mostly heterogeneous networks apply hierarchical routing protocols where some
nodes are more advanced and powerful than the other nodes, but not always this is the
case, sometimes in hierarchical (clustering) protocols the nodes are grouped together
to form a cluster, and the cluster head is assigned to every cluster, which after data
aggregation from all the nodes, communicates with the base node. The clustering
scheme is more energy efficient and more easily manageable. Examples are:

● Threshold sensitive energy efficient sensor network (TEEN)

● Adaptive threshold sensitive energy efficient sensor network (APTEEN)
● Low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH)
● The power-efficient gathering in sensor information systems (PEGASIS)
● Virtual grid architecture routing (VGA)
 ● Self-organizing protocol (SOP)
● Geographic adaptive fidelity (GAF)

5.2.3. Location-based routing (geo-centric)

In location-based routing, the nodes can locate their present location using various
localization protocols. Location information helps in improving the routing procedure
and also enables sensor networks to provide some extra services. Examples are:

● SPEED
● Geographical and energy-aware routing (GEAR)
● SPAN

5.3. Operation-based routing protocols

According to the operational basis the routing protocols are classified as:

● Multipath routing protocols

● Query-based routing
● Negotiation based routing
● QoS-based routing
● Coherent routing

5.3.1. Multi-path routing protocol

Multi-path routing protocols provide multiple paths for data to reach the destination
providing load balancing, low delay, and improved network performance as a result.
The multiple routing protocol also provides an alternate path in case of failure of any
path. Dense networks are more interested in multiple-path networks. To keep the paths
alive some sort of periodic messages have to be sent after some specific intervals
hence multiple path routing is not more energy efficient. Multipath routing protocols
are: [6]

● Multipath and Multi SPEED (MMSPEED)

● Sensor protocols for information via negotiation (SPIN)

5.3.2. Query-based routing protocol

These types of routing protocols are mostly receiver-initiated. The sensor nodes will
only send data in response to queries generated by the destination node. The
destination node sends a query of interest for receiving some information through the
network and the target node senses the information and sends it back to the node that
has initiated the request. The examples are [6]:

● Sensor protocols for information via negotiation (SPIN)

● Directed diffusion (DD)
● COUGAR

5.3.3. Negotiation-based routing protocols

In these types of protocols to keep the redundant data transmission level at a
minimum, the sensor nodes negotiate with the other nodes and share their information
with the neighboring nodes about the resources available, and data transmission
decisions are made after the negotiation process. Examples are [6]:

● Sensor protocols for information via negotiation (SPAN)

● Sequential assignment routing (SAR)
● Directed diffusion (DD)
5.3.4. QoS-based routing protocols
To get good Quality of Service these protocols are used. QoS-aware protocols try to
discover a path from source to sink that satisfies the level of metrics related to good
QoS like throughput, data delivery, energy, and delay, but also making the optimum
use of the network resources.

Examples are: [4, 6]

● Sequential assignment routing (SAR)

● SPEED
● Multipath and Multi SPEED (MMSPEED)

5.3.5. Coherent data processing routing protocol

Incoherent data processing routing protocol, the nodes perform minimum processing
(time stamping, data compression, etc.) on the data before transmitting it to the other
sensor nodes or aggregators. The aggregator performs aggregation of data from
different nodes and then passes to the sink node.

● Middleware Architecture of WSN:

i. The middleware generally gathers information from both the application and network
protocols, determines how to support the connected applications, and at the same time
adjusts network protocol parameters.
ii. Sometimes the middleware goes under the network protocols layer and interfaces
with the operating system directly. WSN middleware needs to dynamically adjust
network protocol parameters and configure the sensor nodes based on application
requirements in terms of performance improvement, QoS, and energy conservation.
iii. The WSN middleware can abstract the common properties of applications and offer
general-purpose services that can be used by a wide range of applications.
iv. In general, a middleware solution may consist of three components: resource
management, which is a functional element that monitors the network status and gets
application requirements, event detection and management which is used to detect and
manage events, and API (Application Programming Interface) which is invoked by the
applications to use services of the middleware and achieve the required performance
and QoS parameters. The figure below shows the general architecture of WSN
middleware.
vi. WSN middleware should provide data management functions since it is dealing with
a data-centric technology. These data management functions can include the following:
• Data dissemination:
i. In WSN the data sensed by the sensor nodes need to be transmitted to a special node
or a sink for more analysis, control, and management.
ii. Data dissemination protocols that are related to routing protocols are required to
provide effective data transmission.
iii. The major difference between a data dissemination protocol and a routing protocol is
that the former is general and designed to find a path between source and destination,
and the latter should guarantee successful transmission from nodes to sink.
The initial phase of triggering data transmission that is initiated by the sink, and the data
transmission phase is when sensor nodes report data to the sink.
• Data compression:
Many characteristics of WSNs make it possible to implement effective data compression
techniques.
i. First, neighboring sensor nodes tend to collect correlated data especially when their
deployment is dense in the network.
ii. Second, this correlation may become more apparent on the path from the sensor
nodes to the sink due to the treelike logical topology of most Wireless Sensor Networks.
iii. Third, the occurrence of an event in WSN may be assimilated as a random process
whose information content can be extracted easily.
iv. Fourth, the application semantics in WSN may enable data aggregation and data
fusion.
vi. Fifth, the data reading and reporting in WSN can be reduced thanks to the tolerance
of applications for possible errors in data.
Compression includes the following techniques: Information theoretic-based techniques
such as Distributed Source Coding Using Syndromes (DISCUS), data
aggregation-based compression schemes such as tiny aggregation service for TAG,
and sampling of a random process.
• Data storage:
i. Data storage sensor nodes store data related to the sensed events for future use.
When considering data storage, several questions need to be answered concerning the
type of data that needs to be stored, where this data should be stored, and for how long.
ii. This will help to define the data storage requirements of WSN. There exist two types
of data in WSN: the raw data collected directly by the sensor nodes and the results from
the processed data collected initially.

● MiLan and IrisNet

● Challenges and Attacks