Increasing the energy efficiency of WSNs using algebraic soft-decision reed-solomon decoders

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have very broad applications. The lifetime and performance of WSNs are dependent to a large extent on the limited energy resource of sensor nodes. Signal transmission is a major energy-consuming component. In this paper, we exploit adopting the low-complexity Chase (LCC) algebraic soft-decision Reed-Solomon (RS) decoders in WSNs. Compared to traditional hard-decision RS decoders, the LCC decoders can achieve significant coding gain. Hence, to reach the same error rate at the receiver, the LCC decoders allow more reduction on the signal transmission energy. In addition, the LCC decoders can be carefully designed so that their energy consumption is reduced. The LCC decoders for a variety of RS codes are synthesized using standard cell libraries, and power analysis is carried out. It is found that, compared to traditional hard-decision RS and BCH decoders, the LCC decoders lead to higher energy efficiency in WSNs when the signal transmission distance is not short.