Energy Saving via Power-Aware Buffering in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a study on the impact of buffering schemes on wireless sensor power consumption. Two common buffering paradigms are studied: fixed-size buffering and fixed-interval buffering. We present theoretical analyses of the power consumption of the buffering schemes, in relation to parameters of the sensor node´s wireless radio and memory modules, as well as the sensor data arrival rate. Our results indicate that, under the same circumstances, the optimal fixed-size buffering scheme outperforms the optimal fixed-interval scheme in terms of overall power conservation. We also show that a power-aware buffering scheme can save significant energy consumption over a power-oblivious buffering scheme, thus prolonging the useful lifespan of the sensor nodes.