This document discusses wireless sensor networks (WSN). It defines WSN as consisting of hundreds to millions of small, inexpensive, low-power sensor nodes that can sense environmental conditions and communicate wirelessly. These sensor nodes monitor their surroundings, collect data, and transmit that data to a base station. The document outlines the types of nodes in a WSN, including sensing and sink nodes. It also describes common WSN applications in areas like smart home monitoring, the military, and environmental monitoring. Finally, it discusses challenges in WSN like energy constraints and routing, and areas of ongoing research like improving power efficiency through clustering and cluster head selection.