|
| Ecosystem | WSN | Comments |
|
| Structure (components making up the system) |
| Contains living organisms | Contains sensors | Good match |
| Contains nonliving physical components | Contains only sensors | The space where the WSN is deployed could represent its nonliving physical component |
|
| Composition (variety of active entities within the system) |
| Organisms may be producers, consumers, or predators | Sensors may be data collectors (producers), sinks/gateways (consumers), intruders (predators), or relays | In both systems, roles could change depending on the environmental context and human interventions |
|
| Topology (organization of entities that make up the system) |
| Structured into populations (also called communities and colonies) | Commonly structured into clusters | Clusters could be predefined by human operators or result from the network self-organization |
| Populations have dynamic structures | Clusters have dynamic topologies | In both systems, topological changes are driven by internal and external factors |
| Populations may have different geographic scales | Clusters may have different geographic scales | In both systems, inheritance relationships may exist between populations/clusters |
|
| Goals (aims of the system) |
| Depends on the ecosystem; can be survival (nutrition and protection from predators) and/or growth (nutrition and reproduction) | Depends on the WSN but generally collecting, processing, and routing data while optimizing the use of the limited resources (survival) | The goals of WSNs are well known, whereas those of ecosystems are not always understood |
|
| Communication (data flow between entities composing the system) |
| Large quantities of matter, energy, and information flow, within and between components | Usually large quantity of data is exchanged between sensors | Sensors may not be able to support high data traffic because of energy restrictions |
| Flows of energy, matter, and information are in some cases controlled by one or more entities | Data traffic may be controlled by one or more entities, generally cluster heads/gateways | Communications between sensors are very costly and are generally controlled to reach the predefined aims while preserving energy |
|
| Function (behavior of entities composing the system) |
| Living organisms may be in a dormant state | Sensors usually have to sleep | Sensors are constrained to sleep to save energy |
| Organisms interact while exhibiting collaborative, competing, or antagonistic behaviors | Sensors interact while exhibiting collaborative, competing, or antagonistic behaviors | Much more restrictions on sensors’ interactions compared to organisms’ interactions (due to limited communication ranges and energy) |
| Populations self-organize to adapt to environmental changes | Clusters can partially self-organize to react to internal and external changes | Self-organization is usually a complex task for sensors because of their limited capabilities, lack of intelligence and autonomy |
| Populations may have unpredictable and uncontrolled changes/behaviors | Clusters generally have predicable and controlled behaviors unless unexpected events affect sensors | Sensors have limited context awareness |
| Ecosystem’s operation results from the organization of its populations and the behavior of its organisms | WSN’s operation results from the organization of its clusters and the behavior of its sensors | In both systems, complex functions result from simple behaviors of active entities which collectively achieve goals beyond their individual capabilities |
| Organisms have the important characteristic of evolution in terms of number, structure, and behavior | Sensors may be enhanced with mechanisms to learn and evolve thanks to artificial intelligence concepts (e.g., multiagent systems) | Evolution in WSNs takes much less time than in ecosystems but consumes a lot of energy and requires intelligence and autonomy from sensors |
|
