Review
Software Defined Networking for Improved Wireless
Sensor Network Management: A Survey
Musa Ndiaye
1,
*, Gerhard P. Hancke
1,2
and Adnan M. Abu-Mahfouz
3
1
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0028,
South Africa; ghancke@ieee.org
2
Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
3
CSIR Meraka Institute, Pretoria 0184, South Africa; a.abumahfouz@ieee.org
* Correspondence: musandiaye@gmail.com; Tel.: +27-81-092-7695
Academic Editor: Kemal Akkaya
Received: 3 March 2017; Accepted: 25 April 2017; Published: 4 May 2017
Abstract:
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming increasingly popular with the advent
of the Internet of things (IoT). Various real-world applications of WSNs such as in smart grids,
smart farming and smart health would require a potential deployment of thousands or maybe
hundreds of thousands of sensor nodes/actuators. To ensure proper working order and network
efficiency of such a network of sensor nodes, an effective WSN management system has to be
integrated. However, the inherent challenges of WSNs such as sensor/actuator heterogeneity,
application dependency and resource constraints have led to challenges in implementing effective
traditional WSN management. This difficulty in management increases as the WSN becomes larger.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides a promising solution in flexible management WSNs
by allowing the separation of the control logic from the sensor nodes/actuators. The advantage with
this SDN-based management in WSNs is that it enables centralized control of the entire WSN making
it simpler to deploy network-wide management protocols and applications on demand. This paper
highlights some of the recent work on traditional WSN management in brief and reviews SDN-based
management techniques for WSNs in greater detail while drawing attention to the advantages
that SDN brings to traditional WSN management. This paper also investigates open research
challenges in coming up with mechanisms for flexible and easier SDN-based WSN configuration
and management.
Keywords:
wireless sensor networks; SDN-based Wireless Sensor Networks; software defined
networks for sensor nodes; network management architecture; network management abstractions
1. Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of individual nodes that interact with the environment
by sensing and controlling physical parameters such as temperature, pressure and volume [
1
,
2
].
The nodes also have to interact with each other through wireless communication to achieve the
sensing task [
3
], and are autonomous although some user-driven data collection is also possible [
4
].
These nodes contain computation, sensing, actuation and wireless communication functions [
5
,
6
].
Therefore, WSNs are continuously becoming important especially with the advent of Internet of Things
(IoT) essential for monitoring several objects in applications such as smart cities, smart health care,
smart water networks, smart power grids, smart farming and intelligent transport
systems [7–13].
Furthermore, wireless sensor nodes are usually not tethered to a power source as they require
a minimum amount of energy which is usually supplied by integrated batteries. WSNs are very
flexible in their applications but also pose a research challenge due to their resource constrained
and application specific architecture. With increased demand in the application of WSNs, the extent
Sensors 2017, 17, 1031; doi:10.3390/s17051031 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
