Energy profile for environmental monitoring wireless sensor networks

Energy efficiency is a critical factor in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Understanding how energy is being consumed by sensor nodes allows researchers and practitioners to more effectively evaluate and optimize the development of real-world WSN applications. In WSN deployments for environmental monitoring, the external environment affects the performance of the application, influencing the energy consumed by sensor nodes. In this work, we present the energy consumption profile for an environmental monitoring WSN application deployed in an outdoor testbed. Our results reveal that significant differences exist in energy consumption between nodes with attached external sensors and ones without them, as well as the effect of network dynamics on the energy profile.