Route Construction Based on Measured Characteristics of Radio Propagation in Wireless Sensor Networks

There are many constraints on electrical power and communication in wireless sensor networks since sensor nodes can only be equipped with poor devices. Therefore, it is important to construct an effective communication route in terms of energy-efficiency and quality of communication. Many studies have been conducted to address this issue. In particular, controlling the transmission power of each individual node has been one of the hottest issues in recent years. Most conventional studies have assumed an environment in which radio signals transmitted by nodes propagate equally in all directions. However, this model cannot be applied to real environments due to several effects such as the presence of obstacles and antenna characteristics. In this paper, we propose a routing method based on the measured characteristics of radio propagation in a real environment. Our method first involves measuring the characteristics of radio propagation for all radio links. Second, the transmission power of each individual node and a communication route from the node to the sink node are determined based on the measured characteristics.