Wireless Sensor Node Hardware

The fundamental building blocks of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are the sensor nodes themselves. For the last 10–12 years, a number of research institutions and companies have been designing and producing nodes. However, the capabilities of the resulting nodes vary widely, but only within certain bounds. All the nodes have a number of features in common, i.e., a low-power microcontroller, a low-power, short-range, radio, a power supply, and either onboard sensors or the capability to attach sensors. However, it is the variance within these bounds that complicates application development.