Energy-saving Strategies of Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN), which consist of randomly deployed tiny sensors, data processing unit, and communicating components, have a wide range of applications, such as industry, agriculture, business, military, and health. Because power supply might be impossible, it is the key problem to find an efficient energy strategy for prolonging network' s lifetime. This article made a detailed introduction for energy management of WSN, analyzing energy strategies used for WSN. Keywords-wireless sensor network (WSN); power-saving strategies; network protocol; energy management 1. Foreword Sensor networks is quite different form traditional wireless networks [1 .Wireless networks like Ad hoc, cellular, Bluetooth, their chief design target is to provide high QoS. Because mobile node can get incessant power supply, node energy can be put in a less important position. But severe energy restriction exists in sensor nodes which is enormous widespread and can not get energy supply. Using node energy efficiently, prolonging network surviving time (life cycle) became chief design objective. This essay will analyzes and explains the primary energy-saving strategy of wireless sensor network. Low power consumption designand hardware structure design Ultra-low power consumption design is a technology which is an integration of hardware and software technology. In wireless sensor node which is composite of micro control unit (MCU) and radio-frequency module, reduce power consumption can save electric power greatly, and simplify electrical source design. 1) Reducing power consumption starts from the selection of MCU, low power consumption MCU should be considered at first.2) Choosing chip with low standby current and steady transceiving current for Radio frequency module. 3) Power source with low output voltage and low consumption power itself. 4) Reducing system operating frequency can lower current consumption effectively. 5) Lowering system operating voltage influences system power consumption. So under the premise of system credibility, make sure that system is in lower operating voltage. 6) Use interrupt to make the processor into deep sleep.As we all know, sleep and power down mode will lower operating current greatly. 7) Dynamic Power Management (DPM)[6]. Whenthere is nothing interesting happened around, some modules are idle, switching to low energy consumption state (sleeping mode). This event-driven energy management is very important to enhancing life cycle of sensor node. 8) DynamicVoltage Scaling (DVS) [6].When calculated load is low, reduce working voltage and frequency of MCU and thereby reduce processing capacity, can reduce power consumption of MCU. 9) Reduce starting time Of Sending and receiving module. Energy-saving Software DesignIf system software like operating system, application layer and network protocol etc. has been specially optimized on power consumption, the surviving time of WSN will extend. The most proper way is to use DPM and DVS in operating system. Because OS attains performance demand of all...

A Survey on Energy Harvesting and Integrated Data Sharing in Wireless Body Area Networks

“…For example, sun exposure is very low on cloudy days, and the output voltage of solar cells will be influenced by season, geographical latitude and altitude, and light intensity. The node energy consumption and supply are different; there will be heterogeneous nodes [18]. So energy must be harvested from other sources when sunlight is not available.…”

Design and Testing of a Wireless Sensor Network Using RFID and Zigbee Indoors for Intelligent Buildings

“…As for the design of a network of sensors in open environments is a priority use items that are efficient in terms of energy consumption [10]- [12] and thus the lifetime of the network is as long as possible, for closed environments becomes the main problem in obtaining correct and clean data obtained via sensors, as losses [13] by reflection and refraction are very high and sensors usually have no direct line of sight, which deploy a network of sensors range is a complicated issue.…”

On Adaptive Energy-Efficient Transmission in WSNs

“…This correlation also dynamically fluctuates when the surrounding environmental conditions change. The fluctuation is continuous, and the changing speed depends on many factors, among which the degree of environmental variation is one of the main factors [11].…”