# Opportunities and Challenges for Error Control Schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Review
###### Abstract  
Error Correction Schemes (ECSs) significantly contribute to enhancing reliability and energy efficiency of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This review paper offers an overview of the different types of ECS used in communication systems and a synopsis of the standards for WSN. We also discuss channels and network models for WSN as they are crucial for efficient ECS design and implementation. The literature review conducted on the proposed energy consumption and efficiency models for WSN indicates that existing research work has not considered Single Hop Asymmetric Structure (SHAS) with high performing Error Correcting Codes (ECCs). We present a review on proposed ECS for WSN based on three criteria: Forward Error Correction (FEC), adaptive error correction techniques, and other techniques. Based on our review work, we found that there are limited works on ECS design on a realistic network model i.e., a modified multi-hop WSN model. Finally, we offer future research challenges and opportunities on ECS design and implementation for WSN. error control scheme (ECS); energy efficiency; forward error correction (FEC); hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ); wireless sensor network (WSN) [color=orange!10, color=orange!10, color=orange! WSNs come with challenges as well as opportunities. It is anticipated that WSN plays a vital role in daily life as WSN is integrated in future generation mobile technology and wireless technologies. The proper use of WSN technology will enhance quality of life, environmental monitoring, control process engineering, and the performance of military task and applications in several other fields [4; 5; 6]. ECSs design and implementation for WSN have numerous challenges. Firstly, some nodes in WSN are energy and computationally constrained as the node is operated by a battery and its replacement is a complex and difficult process in some applications due to geographical location and other factors. The energy saving on WSN nodes is especially important when WSN nodes are located at remote and isolated areas, as replacing the battery on the node is either impossible or very costly or time-consuming. Secondly, the communication environment and design requirement of communication link of WSN varies according to its application. The design requirements of the communication link constitutes reliability and Quality of Service (QoS), data rate, coverage area, channel propagation and delay requirements. Therefore, the ECSs used in the WSN should be able to support various requirements using limited energy and computational resources. The proper design and implementation of ECS may provide an opportunity for energy saving at energy-constrained WSN node and also enhance WSN link reliability. Therefore, the proper understanding of ECS for WSN is important to improve the reliability of communication links and also energy saving at energy-constrained WSN nodes. It is hard to find survey papers covering design and implementation aspects of ECSs and energy consumption models used in WSNs. As per our discoveries, there are three review papers [7; 8; 9] in these areas. In [7], review is limited to modulation and coding techniques used in WSN without proper background work. In [8], [PERSON] et al. review Forward Error Correction (FEC) or Error-Correcting Codes (ECCs) in WSN from an energy perspective, which also lacks proper background work and covers only limited literature. Recently, there was a review paper published on ECCs in WSN [9] where the review paper did not include energy analysis concept and the review is only limited to FEC. There is no review on other ECS such as Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ), channel adaptive techniques and other techniques. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an extensive investigation on the current scenarios for energy consumption models and ECS design for WSN in the literature. Based on the literature findings, we identify existing challenges in the energy efficiency analysis, ECS design and implementation of WSN.