Introduction to Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy Considerations in WSNs I 3 February 2005

The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

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Organizational
Class Website
www.engineering.uiowa.edu/~ece195/2005/

Class Time
Monday Thursday 4:30-5:20 12:30-1:20 Room 4511 SC Room 3220 SC

Please note that the room numbers are different for Mondays and Thursdays.

Office Hours
Monday Thursday Other 5:20-6:20 1:30-2:30 By appointment Room 1126 SC Room 1126 SC Room 523C SHL

The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

A. Kruger

Organizational
Class Topics (3 students/per topic) Students read and help prepare a lecture on one of:
ZigBee Protocol
Brief overview Example application

What is RFID?
Brief overview Explanation of terminology

Sample Energy Budget

Worked example of energy considerations in WSNs

Directed Diffusion
Explanation of the algorithm

Overview of TinyDB Sensor Characteristics

Soil moisture, temperature, humidity, wind speed, vibration

Analog/Digital Conversion
Number of bits, linearity, sampling rate, power, etc.

Smart Dust

Will post a signup sheet

The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

A. Kruger

Organizational
Update Lecture 3 with two slides
Path loss

Added supplementary material to website Lab demonstration next Thursday

The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

A. Kruger

Review Questions
What is LOS? What is WSN? True or false Visual LOS implies RF LOS A 1-km 2.4 GHz link has two antennas that are 2 m above the ground. Do we have LOS? True of false: In free space RF power loss ~1/R2 but when the transmitter and receiver is close to the ground, the loss can be ~1/R4 What is RSSI? How is it used in WSNs? What are the ISM bands True or false: ISM bands are unregulated Explain with a simple sketch and paragraph how multipath propagation can diminish or enhance radio propagation What is BER?
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The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

Review Questions
A manufacturer claims its radio can make reliable reception if the received power is -105 dBm. How many mW is this? Are you impressed? Explain what TDMA is. Explain what FDMA is. Explain (to grandma) what Spread Spectrum communication is. What is S/N and SNR? What are the common units of SNR?
The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

A. Kruger

Review Questions
True or false everything else being equal, RF path loss are higher at 2.5 GHz than at 900 MHz Estimate the path loss in dB at 900 MHz in an indoor environment. There are two floors are six walls between transmitter and receiver. The antennas of a 2.4 GHz RF link are 1 m above the ground, and are 100 m apart. Is the path loss ~ 1/R2 or ~ 1/R4?. Is the communication LOS?
The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

A. Kruger

Energy/Power Considerations
Terms
Cell, Battery Energy (Joule) Power (J/s or Watt) Ampere-hour (AH) Deep-cycle MCU Sleep Modes ADC BPS
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Where Does The Power Go?

The University of Iowa. Copyright 2005

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Microcontroller Unit (MCU)

Intels StrongARM, Atmel AVR (PIC?) Low power modes
Active, Idle, nap, shutdown, sleep modes For some MCUs, in deep sleep modes, the power consumption can almost be negligible Takes longer to wake from a deep sleep than just a nap Wakeup time also takes power Wakeup impact processing
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Radio
Radio typically contain embedded controller that provides many functions
Uses RSSI to adjust transmit power Error detection and correction in hardware

Several modes
Receive only, transmit + receive, idle, etc.

Transmit in general requires most power Careful consider radio spec and modes Mode change can consume a lot of power
May be better to shutdown completely rather than go into idle mode
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Bandwidth vs. Power Consumption

Higher bandwidth (BPS) generally requires
Better S/N
=> more signal power

More sophisticated modulation encoding/decoding algorithms

=> more powerful CPU, more power

Receive power normally much lower than transmit power

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Radio Power Consumption

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Conventional vs WSN Power Management

Conventional
Well developed techniques Objective is to minimize power consumption of individual device: sleep modes, low voltage, low clock speed, etc.

WSNs
Objective is to maximize lifetime of individual node, but more importantly The network as a whole

For example
It may be better for a node to deplete its power source for the greater good of the network
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Sensors
Passive & low power (~mW and smaller)
Soil moisture, temperature, light, humidity

Active & high power

Anemometers, disdrometers, cameras

Many sensors are inherently analog, but some sensors have digital interfaces (provided by embedded controllers) Conditioning/wakeup times need to be considered Analog-Digital Converters (ADC)
Can be a major power consumer More bits and high conversion rate requires more power Dont over specify

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Battery
Uses chemical reaction to provide electrical energy
Temperature depended

Batteries are often the most bulky part of a mote Capacity measured in Ampere-hours or Ah. Note that the capacity does consider voltage
The capacity is the nominal number of hours it can supply a given current
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Capacity 1.25 Ah

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May be possible to use curve to gauge battery state. Must be under load conditions.

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