Exploiting edge capability for wireless sensor networking

As considerable progress is being made in wireless sensor networking, it is envisioned that sensor nodes will be on the cubic millimeter scale, posing stringent constraints on the processing, communication, and storage capabilities of sensor nodes. While it is important to continue pursuing novel algorithms and protocols to squeeze the most out of the existing design space (sensor nodes), it is equally important to explore a new design paradigm for future sensor networks to reduce the complexity burden on sensor nodes. We propose to exploit capabilities at the network edge (i.e., an edge-based approach). We overview existing approaches to this end and present a novel edge-based routing protocol, called BeamStar, as a case study. We show that exploiting edge capability provides a new dimension of freedom for wireless sensor networking, and is effective in relieving the processing, communication, and storage requirements of sensor nodes.