Analysis of energy, coverage, and fault issues and their impacts on applications of wireless sensor networks: A concise survey

Abstract

Energy-efficiency, Coverage-quality, and Fault-tolerance Issues (ECFI) are the three primary and crucial quality assurance standards in a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). These three standards ensure the network design of a self-configurable and sustainable WSN. First, energy-efficiency mechanisms ensure the prolonging of the overall network lifetime. Second, the coverage quality means how well a region of interest (RoI) is covered. Third, fault-tolerance refers to the ability of a network to continue operating without interruption when one or more components fail. With rapid innovations and developments in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications, many researchers' most sustainable objective is to provide an adeptly operational sensor network. A broad range of applications of WSNs can be seen in the fields of academic, military, industry, medical, and daily needs worldwide. This analysis and survey article's main objective is to highlight different promising challenges on various fundamental characteristics, designing limitations, and their impacts on applications of WSNs. The authors also highlight the energy depletion and energy-provision issues with a concise survey of coverage and fault-related issues in WSNs. The authors finally summarized with discussion and analysis of the overall impacts of ECFI and other parameters on WSNs with simulator availability and future research direction.