Abstract:As a result of combination of microsensor technology, low power computing and wireless networking, wireless sensor networks is a novel technology about acquiring and processing information. In this paper, the architecture of wireless sensor network is briefly introduced. Next,some valuable applications are explained and forecasted. Combining with the existing work, the up-to-date research work on node sensing, computing and routing protocols of wireless sensor networks are introduced, some energy-efficient routing techniques are analyzed emphatically. Finally,the research direction in wireless sensor networks in the future is proposed.