A Survey on Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks: Challenges and Design Requirements

TLDR

Software‑defined networking decouples control from data, simplifying management, but traditional networks lack flexibility; applying SDN to wireless sensor networks—small, low‑rate, resource‑constrained nodes—addresses scalability, management, and heterogeneity challenges and positions SDWSN as key to the Internet of Things. This paper reviews SDWSN literature, identifies challenges, and outlines design requirements to guide future research. SDWSN combines SDN and WSN architectures, centralizing control while preserving sensor network constraints, and this survey analyzes the resulting paradigm and its design requirements.

Abstract

Software defined networking (SDN) brings about innovation, simplicity in network management, and configuration in network computing. Traditional networks often lack the flexibility to bring into effect instant changes because of the rigidity of the network and also the over dependence on proprietary services. SDN decouples the control plane from the data plane, thus moving the control logic from the node to a central controller. A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a great platform for low-rate wireless personal area networks with little resources and short communication ranges. However, as the scale of WSN expands, it faces several challenges, such as network management and heterogeneous-node networks. The SDN approach to WSNs seeks to alleviate most of the challenges and ultimately foster efficiency and sustainability in WSNs. The fusion of these two models gives rise to a new paradigm: Software defined wireless sensor networks (SDWSN). The SDWSN model is also envisioned to play a critical role in the looming Internet of Things paradigm. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the SDWSN literature. Moreover, it delves into some of the challenges facing this paradigm, as well as the major SDWSN design requirements that need to be considered to address these challenges.