Energy Efficient AI-Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks for Mission Critical Environments: A Systematic Review across Smart Grid, AI, and Urban Infrastructure Applications
This study addresses the challenge of jointly optimizing energy efficiency, reliability, low latency, and security in mission-critical wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a problem often approached in isolation by existing research. Through a systematic review of 50 high-quality studies published between 2023 and 2026, the work employs qualitative thematic coding and comparative analysis to examine the application of reinforcement learning, fuzzy logic, metaheuristics, and AI-driven security techniques in routing, clustering, and edge computing. The paper proposes a novel, lightweight, interpretable, and field-validated AI-driven paradigm for WSNs that emphasizes multi-objective co-design. Findings demonstrate that AI significantly enhances both energy efficiency and overall system performance, offering robust theoretical foundations and practical guidance for the architecture of future mission-critical systems.