Wireless Sensor nodes fall somewhere in between the single application devices that do

not need an operating system, and the more capable, general purpose devices with the

resources to run a traditional embedded operating system. Sensor node operating system

such as TinyOS, Contiki, MantisOS and SOS which is discussed in this paper exhibit

characteristics of both traditional embedded systems and general-purpose operating systems

providing a limited number of common services for application developers linking

software and hardware.

These common services typically include platform support, hardware management of sensors,

radios, and I/O buses and application construction etc. They also provide services

needed by applications which include task coordination, power management, adaptation

to resource constraints, and networking. The evaluation was concentrated on TinyOS

including an analysis on version 1.x and 2.x resource management and flexibility and its

operation with the other wireless sensor node operating systems.