Energy efficiency testbed for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consist of many small battery powered nodes with resources constraint. Low power design is a pivotal step of deploying a new platform. A typical sensor node consists of three major components: sensors, micro-controller, and transceiver. It´s important to know their dynamic power consumption before optimization. Current research focuses on simulation, or integrating software probes inside the node. They are not always applicable. We proposed an energy efficiency testbed for wireless sensor nodes. It is portable and can realtime sample the data of power consumption. Our device, based on measurements of current and voltage information, enables accurate energy efficiency analysis of nodes in real world. It´s useful for evaluating and modeling a new platform at design phase. Moreover, it can be used to monitor health status of sensor nodes from the aspect of power. Experimental results on WSN platform, MicaZ, show that our device can well monitor the energy efficiency of wireless sensor nodes.