A Review of Performance Metrics in Designing of Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

The design and optimization of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a promise platform for a plethora of application areas, induced many researchers to work on various problems related to this realm. A sensor network design is influenced by many factors, which include scalability, reliability, operating environment, topology, hardware constraints, fault tolerance, transmission media, and power consumption. These factors are addressed by many researchers. However, all these studies have limitedly focused on all factors that are driving the design of sensor networks and sensor nodes. These factors are vital because they serve as a guideline to design a protocol or an algorithm for Wireless sensor networks. All these performance metrics which are considered as application requirement must be measurable, independent and comparable. However, many researchers using sensor systems do not have a clear metric to describe how wireless systems will work in particular applications. This paper assesses the state of art of performance metrics considered for the design of such networks. This analysis leads to provide better networking services over current technologies in WSN. The main objective of this paper to explore various performance metrics used in WSN's design to improve the design of protocols and optimization techniques for this network.