This Springer Brief introduces wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and emphasizes the importance of resilient operations in various application domains. It discusses traditional methods for ensuring continuous data delivery despite sensor failures, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. An overview of network coding basics is provided, advocating for network coding-based protection to leverage benefits while mitigating drawbacks of traditional methods. The authors explore a centralized design and analysis of network coding-based protection for WSNs, addressing practical network scenarios and employed coding strategies. The discussion extends to recovery from data losses through a distributed approach, which is more suitable for large-scale WSNs. Algorithms for scheduling transmissions with network coding are presented, covering both digital and analog network coding. This work offers a concise yet comprehensive examination of network coding for agile and resource-efficient protection in WSNs, appealing to professionals and researchers in fault tolerance, network coding, and WSN deployment in challenging environments. Advanced students in electrical engineering and computer science will also find this research a valuable reference.
