Towards an ultra-low-power electronically controllable array antenna for WSN

Abstract

This paper discusses steps towards a low-power beam-switching array antenna suitable for wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. Such an antenna will help to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and thus throughput, latency and other important wireless network performance parameters. The power consumption is a factor critical for the long autonomous operation of battery-powered WSN nodes, and has thus been given special attention. A prototype was manufactured and has demonstrated a good match between the simulated and experimentally measured gain and return loss. The power consumption of the RF electronics was also measured and found to be below 1.1 mW.