A review on recent studies utilizing artificial intelligence methods for solving routing challenges in wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming increasingly important, providing pervasive real-time applications that have been used to enhance smart environments in various fields such as smart cities, manufacturing, and the Internet of Things (IoT). This survey reviews and analyzes the research trends related to the utilized Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for WSN and the potential enhancement of WSNs using these methods. We highlight the routing challenge in WSN and present a comprehensive discussion on the recent studies that utilized various AI methods in addressing the routing challenge to meet specific objectives of WSN, during the span of 2010 to 2020. This would guide the reader towards an understanding of up-to-date applications of AI methods with respect to routing challenge in WSN. In addition, a general evaluation is provided along with a comparison of utilized AI methods in WSNs, which guides the reader in identifying the most appropriate AI methods that can be utilized for solving the routing challenge. Finally, we conclude the paper by stating the open research issues and new directions for future research.