Energy-efficient forwarding strategies for wireless sensor networks in fading channels

• Published in: Annales des télécommunications 2021-02, Vol.76 (1-2), p.97-108
• Main Authors: Milocco, R., Muhlethaler, P., Boumerdassi, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Channels; Circuits; Communications Engineering; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Cost analysis; Energy; Energy costs; Engineering; Fading; Information and Communication; Information Systems and Communication Service; Networks; R & D/Technology Policy; Sensors; Signal,Image and Speech Processing; Wireless communications; Wireless networks; Wireless sensor networks
• ISSN: 0003-4347; 1958-9395
• DOI: 10.1007/s12243-020-00815-x

In the context of geographic routing in wireless sensor networks linked by fading communication channels, energy-efficient transmission is important to extend the network lifetime. To this end, we propose a novel method to minimize the energy consumed by one bit of information per meter and per second toward the destination in fading channels. Using the outage probability as a measure to maximize the amount of information delivered within a given time interval we decide energy-efficient geographic routing between admissible nodes in a wireless sensor network. We present three different approaches, the first is optimal and is obtained by varying both transmission rate and power, the other two are sub-optimal since only one of them is tuned. Simulation examples comparing the energy costs for the different strategies illustrate the theoretical analysis in the cases of log-normal and Nakagami shadow fading. With the method proposed it is possible to obtain significant energy savings (up to ten times) with respect to fixed transmission rate and power.