Efficient network design for environmental monitoring applications A practical approach

The deployment of a wireless sensor network is highly dependent on the target environment. Once the characteristics of the desired area are know, the question of network size arises. Factors like transmission power level, cost of network deployment and the coverage area directly affect the size of the network. This paper analyzes the behaviour of a typical multi-hop wireless sensor network operating in an outdoor environment. By considering two separate cases; fixed cost and fixed deployment area, we present best network set-up statistics based on actual received power measurements.