Fault management frameworks in wireless sensor networks: A survey

Abstract Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are composed of a set of sensor nodes, widely spread out across the area and gather information. Some sensor nodes may develop a fault due to various reasons such as environmental effects. Since the occurrence of faults should not affect the desired function and functionality of network, fault management is vital to improve fault tolerance. Here, we classify faults based on their behavior, durability, and the components of network. Then the components of fault management and the challenges of fault management frameworks are represented. Also, other frameworks are analyzed to define their major challenges including energy consumption, fault detection accuracy, delay, the scalability and overhead of network. Other papers have classified fault management frameworks into centralized, distributed, and hierarchical, but we suggest a new classification based on the performance of management of each framework and the number of involved nodes. Next, frameworks have been analyzed and evaluated according to their major challenges. The analyses have provided a chance to offer more accurate and effective fault management frameworks with minimum energy consumption, delay, and overhead.