Directional Graph-Based Energy Model for IoT Wireless Relay Systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) consists of integrating sensors into ordinary objects that are connected to the Internet across wired and wireless networks. Due to its greater coverage and low upfront investment, wireless networks have the potential to allow the massive and fast deployment of IoT. In recent years, relay wireless systems equipped with directional antennas have been identified as a robust technology that can boost the performance of IoT networks in terms of coverage, connectivity, and capacity. Contrary to omnidirectional antennas, which can radiate energy in all directions, directional antennas can focus the energy in a specific direction, extending the coverage range for a given power level. In this paper, we propose a method to model the energy consumed by the relaying nodes when directional antennas are used in the IoT wireless network. This study has demonstrated that by adapting the beamwidth of the antennas, nodes can reach furthest nodes and consequently, reduce the number of hops between source and destination. This fact not only reduces the end-to-end delay and improves the network throughput but also reduces the average energy consumed by the entire network.