Service discovery in wireless sensor networks: Protocols & classifications

Although wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been an active field of research for the last so many years, service discovery within WSN has not been considered much by the research community. Service discovery in wireless sensor networks particularly in the context of future ubiquitous computing plays an important role and its significance cannot be underestimated. In this paper, we present a study of the existing service discovery protocols for wireless sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks are characterized by their limited battery and computational resources, which needs to be considered in designing an efficient service discovery paradigm for such networks. The discussion is followed by some of the open research issues within service discovery for wireless sensor networks with possible solutions to those problems especially in designing a cross layer service discovery mechanism.