Routing in wireless sensor networks for cyber-physical systems

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) and cyber infrastructures are key elements of national infrastructures, and they generally involve a tight coupling of cyber and physical components. CPSs can provide a variety of mission-critical services, such as pervasive health care, smart electricity grid, green cloud computing, and surveillance with unmanned aerial vehicles. CPSs generally include a set of sensors which are connected wirelessly. Thus, wireless sensor network (WSN) is an important enabling technology which supports the deployment of CPS. In WSN, sensor nodes have a limited transmission range, and their processing and storage capabilities as well as their energy resources are also limited. Therefore, routing protocols for WSN have played a key role in ensuring reliable multi-hop communication under these conditions. In this chapter, we present a survey of the state of the art on routing techniques in WSNs for CPS. We first outline the design challenges for routing protocols in WSNs followed by a comprehensive survey of different routing techniques. We also highlight the advantages and performance issues of each routing technique. Finally, we discuss some challenges and future research directions in the area of routing in WSNs for CPS.