On accurately predicting mote deaths

Frequent replacement of batteries or network partitions (i.e., “sudden” decreased network coverage) resulting from unexpected (pre-mature) mote deaths impede the wide scale deployment of low power wireless networks comprising battery-operated embedded systems or motes. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this paper is to profile the energy consumption in a mote using a novel “off-line” model to predict its operation life with high accuracy for simple, normal routing tasks, and validate it using our testbed. The results show that the predicted energy consumption (in the PHY layer of the mote) and the operation lives of the motes were within ≈ 10% of the values obtained using the testbed. Furthermore, the cross-layer energy profiling involving the MAC layer provided insights into the energy consumed during the key modes of a simple, practical MAC protocol.