Improving Energy Conservation Using Bulk Transmission over High-Power Radios in Sensor Networks

Abstract

Low power radios, such as the CC2420, have been widely popular with recent sensor platforms. This paper explores the potential for energy savings from adding a high-power, high-bandwidth radio to current sensor platforms. High-bandwidth radios consume more power but significantly reduce the time for transmissions. Consequently, they offer net savings in total communication energy when there is enough data to offset wake-up energy overhead. The analysis on energy characteristics of several IEEE 802.11 radios show that a feasible crossover point exists (in terms of data size) after which energy savings are possible. Based on this analysis, we present a bulk data transmission protocol for dual radio systems. The results of simulations and prototype implementation show significant energy savings at the expense of introducing acceptable delay.