Realistic energy model based energy balanced optimization for Low Rate WPAN network

In multi-hop wireless sensor networks, traffic flow patterns are often characterized by many-to-one resulting in energy imbalance. Previous research has proposed many approaches to solve this issue. However, a common limitation is to use the idealized energy model such as ldquofirst order radio modelrdquo, which is the idealized estimation for RF transmission energy cost of the sensor node. In this paper, a realistic and representative Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPAN) RF transceiver energy model is developed from the measured data on Chipcon CC2420. The approach used for developing the model is general, and can be used for any radio transceiver, provided the transition times, power levels and corresponding energy cost are known. Furthermore, based on this energy model, an optimized energy balanced (OEB) transmission scheme is proposed and applied to maximize the network lifetime. To illustrate the performance of OEB, simulations show that the lifetime of a WSN using OEB scheme can last 2.2-2.5 times of that using another energy-efficient traffic plan: direct transmission with power control policy (PCP).