An Automatic, Adaptive, Ad-hoc Algorithm for Power Conservation in Sensor Networks using Switch-off

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are set to revolutionize the way we sense and control our environment. A set of nodes equipped with sensors and capable of communicating with each other in ad-hoc fashion, they relay their data to a monitoring station. What sets them apart from other ad-hoc networks is the periodic nature of the traffic and a critical dependence on a finite source of power, the battery. The battery is a bottleneck to the lifetime of the network and careful use of the battery can increase the lifetime by orders of magnitude.

The periodic nature of traffic in a sensor network can be leveraged to switch the transceiver off when not needed, as shown in existing literature. We take up one such switch-off-switch-on scheduling algorithm and show how it can be extended to be robust to dynamic conditions. We then develop an analytical model, which can be used to predict the performance of the algorithm. We also identify a better way of expressing the utility of the network and quantify the benefit accruing from using the algorithm, making it possible to compare different variations of the algorithm and different configuration parameters. The model can also be used to find ways to improve the performance of the algorithm to obtain greater power efficiency.