Reduced power consumption in wireless sensor networks using queue based approach

Technological advancements in low power integrated circuits and wireless communications have made it possible to use efficient, low cost, low power small devices in remote sensing applications. This has led to the feasibility of using a network of sensors to be used for the collection, processing, analysis and distribution of important information, collected in a wide variety of environments. Sensor nodes in a wireless sensor network transmit data in single or multi-hop to a central node called the base station. A very important issue in wireless sensor networks is the scarcity of power and hence optimal use of available power is of prime importance. It is seen that in any sensor node, switching from idle to busy state and vice versa takes up a major portion of the power. We study and analyze a technique that aims to reduce the number of these in order to reduce the consumption of power. In this technique the radio of the sensor node is switched on only when the number of packets in a queue exceed a certain threshold as opposed to the general tendency of transmitting a packet as soon as it is available for transmission. We analyze the performance of this system with respect to the power consumption. The simulations performed show that the simulation results are close to the theoretical results thus indicating the validity of the technique studied.