An accurate energy consumption model for the physical layer in a wireless mote

Technology solutions involving deployment of large scale, low-power networks comprising battery-operated wireless embedded systems or motes do not favor frequent replacement of batteries. Hence, it is of paramount importance to estimate the energy consumption in wireless motes prior to deployment. The limited accuracy in modeling the energy consumption of motes lead to decrease in the network coverage resulting from unexpected “mote deaths.” With this in mind, the overriding purpose of this paper is to propose an energy consumption model for the physical layer (i.e., the transceiver and the microcontroller) that accurately predicts the operation life of a wireless mote. For a line-of-sight, short-range communication link, it is shown that the operation life of a wireless mote (a MICAz mote, in this paper) estimated by the proposed model is within 2-10% of the actual value.