Real-time Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks: a Survey

Wireless sensor networks can be termed as a new generation of distributed embedded systems that has a capability of meeting broad range of real-time applications. Examples include radiation monitoring, fire monitoring, border surveillance, and medical care to name but a few. Wireless sensor networks that are deployed in time/mission-critical applications with highly dynamic environments have to interact with the physical phenomenon under stringent timing constraints and severe resource limitations. For such real-time wireless sensor networks, designing and developing a real-time routing protocol that meets the required real-time guarantee of data packets communication is a stimulating field of study that raised many challenges and research issues. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of real-time routing protocols in WSN, by discussing each protocol with its key features. Finally, we concluded this paper with open research issues and challenges of real-time routing in WSN.