Power efficiency of cooperative communication in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, a new protocol termed CoopXLM that integrates cooperative communication and Cross-Layer Module (XLM) is created and examined via simulation. CoopXLM modifies XLM by allowing multiple cooperative nodes to participate in receiver-based contention. Although there is increased energy consumption for processing, simulation results indicate that across all duty cycles there is an average energy savings of 38% with CoopXLM in comparison to XLM. It was also found that CoopXLM yields higher goodput than XLM at lower duty cycles but yields lower goodput at higher duty cycles.