Propagation Models for Wireless Sensor Networks, Re-Evaluation and Updates

Wireless sensor networks are expanding across nearly all aspects of social and economic activity. Their deployment now spans almost all available environments, including, in some cases, off-planet applications. Applications may range from near-ground, underground, undersea, indoor–outdoor, and on- and in-body, to name a few deployment environments. Each channel model exhibits its own physical representation and statistical distributions. In this work, we categorize and re-evaluate the various propagation models published in the open literature while, at the same time, we contribute critical updates needed due to the rapid expansion of the wireless sensor network discipline. Our work includes various results, based on simulation and/or analytical formulas, that advocate for and evaluate our classification and findings. Unlike prior reviews that treat environments in isolation, this article introduces a unified analytical and simulation framework for a cross-environment comparison, with updated parameterizations aligned with modern WSN deployments. The innovation lies in the consistent cross-environment evaluation of propagation mechanisms, updated parameterizations aligned with modern WSN deployments, and the identification of feasibility and trade-off boundaries across heterogeneous media.