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Comparing Low Power Listening Techniques with Wake up Receiver Technology

Authors:
Malcolm Prinn
Liam Moore
Michael Hayes
Brendan O'Flynn

Keywords: LPL; Wakeup Radio; BOX-MAC; BMAC; XMAC; Wireless sensor networks

Abstract:
One of the major challenges in wireless sensor networks is in reducing power consumption of the individual motes while not degrading the functionality of the network as a whole. With wireless sensor technology becoming more wide spread and larger deployments of this technology being rolled out post deployment issues such as battery replacements become a bigger issue. Reducing power consumption is essential in situations where it is infeasible or impractical to frequently replace batteries. Reducing the power consumption of the motes to a level where batteries can last years or where ideally to levels where energy scavenging becomes more feasible, resulting in battery-less operation of wireless networks, is a major research challenge. One of the main energy consumers on a wireless mote is the radio transceiver. Current approaches using low power listening techniques to reduce mote power while maintaining meshing capabilities and this paper compares the state of the art in low power listening (BOX-MAC 1 and 2) with the latest in commercially available wake up radio technology (Austria Microsystems (AMS) AS3933) to determine which approach is more efficient from an energy consumption view. A theoretical approach has been taken to compare achievable lifetimes of motes under different traffic situations using both Low Power Listening (LPL) methods and Wake up Receivers (WUR). This is then compared against empirical data. As this paper shows, when considering power draw of radios in different configurations, WURs consume up to 20 times less power compared to techniques, thereby enabling indoor energy harvesting (EH) solutions to become practical.

Pages: 88 to 93

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2014

Publication date: July 20, 2014

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-3727

ISBN: 978-1-61208-363-6

Location: Paris, France

Dates: from July 20, 2014 to July 24, 2014