Query processing in wireless sensor networks

Recently, with the fast development of sensing and wireless communication technology, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been applied to monitor the physical world. A WSN consists of a set of sensor nodes, which are small sensing devices with limited computational resources able to communicate with each other located in their radio range. Network protocols ensure the effectiveness of communication between sensor nodes and provide the foundation for WSN applications. The characteristics of WSNs, including the limited energy supply and computational resources, render the design of WSN algorithms challenging and interesting. Both the Database and Network communities have dedicated considerable efforts to make WSNs more effective and efficient. In this chapter, we survey the problems arisen in practical applications of WSNs, focusing on various query processing techniques over captured sensing data.