On the integration of smart antennas in wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a preliminary assessment of the potentialities of the exploitation of smart antennas in WSNs. The more trivial benefits coming from such an integration are: (a) an efficient spatial management of the radiated energy and (b) an efficient and adaptive reuse of wireless links in order to increase the network throughput and to solve coexistence problems arising from the integration with other wireless technologies. However, in order to take advantage of a smart integration at the physical layer, significant improvements both in flexibility and size of the adaptive antenna on the WSN node are needed.