A Cross-Layer Approach to Minimize the Energy Consumption in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Energy efficiency represents one of the primary challenges in the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Since communication is the most power consuming operation for a node, many current energy-efficient protocols are based on duty cycling mechanisms. However, most of these solutions are expensive from both the computational and the memory resources point of view and; therefore, they result in being hardly implementable on resources constrained devices, such as sensor nodes. This suggests to combine new communication protocols with hardware solutions able to further reduce the nodes' power consumption. In this work, a cross-layer solution, based on the combined use of a duty-cycling protocol and a new kind of active wake-up circuit, is presented and validated by using a test bed approach. The resulting solution significantly reduces idle listening periods by awakening the node only when a communication is detected. Specifically, an MAC scheduler manages the awakenings of a commercial power detector connected to the sensor node, and, if an actual communication is detected, it enables the radio transceiver. The effectiveness of the proposed cross-layer protocol has been thoroughly evaluated by means of tests carried out in an outdoor environment.

Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

“…PLOSA has a high delivery rate and low latency. A cross-layer approach has been presented by Catarinucci et al, in which protocol solutions are integrated with hardware [36]. A new wake-up system consisting of a sensor node and a power meter circuit was suggested in the paper, where the suggested protocol exploits the hardware to reduce power consumption.…”

Design of Trusted Security Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Quantum Ant Colony Algorithm

“…As the wireless sensor network using the micro-battery cannot be replaced, it must be to reduce energy consumption as the primary goal. Because the energy consumption of data transmission is more, therefore, efficient routing algorithm is very important for energy saving [2]. Ant colony optimization (ACO) is especially suitable for wireless sensor networks with dynamic and self-organizing characteristics.…”

“…As the wireless sensor network node and network characteristics and energy consumption constraints, leading to wireless sensor network security threats are different from traditional computer networks [1]. We believe that the design principles of WSN (wireless sensor networks) security routing algorithm are as follows: (1) to maintain the global energy load balance of the whole network; (2) to have certain fault tolerance and network self-healing function; (3) application is data centric, routing protocols will continue to be data-based, location-based; (4) it should have a credible security.…”

Energy Efficient Cross-Layer Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks

“…They also show that relative blacklisting schemes reduce disconnections and achieve Several works on WSN reveals that cross-layer integration and design techniques also result in significant improvement in terms of energy conservation [5], [6]. The energy consumption for medium access control (MAC) and physical layer is analyzed in [7][8]. In [9], the joint optimal design of the physical, MAC and routing layer is considered which is called as Energy Optimization Approach (EOA).…”