Chapter 3:

Factors Influencing Sensor Network

Design
Factors Influencing Sensor Network
Design
A. Hardware Constraints
B. Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
C. Scalability
D. Production Costs
E. Sensor Network Topology
F. Operating Environment (Applications)
G. Transmission Media
H. Power Consumption (Lifetime)
Sensor Node Hardware

Location Finding System Mobilizer

SENSING UNIT PROCESSING UNIT

Processor
Sensor ADC Transceiver
Memory

Power Unit Antenna

Fault Tolerance
(Reliability)
 Sensor nodes may fail due to lack of power,
physical damage or environmental interference
 The failure of sensor nodes should not affect the
overall operation of the sensor network
 This is called
RELIABILITY or FAULT TOLERANCE,
i.e., ability to sustain sensor network functionality
without any interruption
 Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
 Reliability R (Fault Tolerance) of a sensor node k is
modeled:
( kt)
R k (t )  e
 i.e., by Poisson distribution, to capture the probability of
not having a failure within the time interval (0,t) with λk is
the failure rate of the sensor node k and t is the time period.

G. Hoblos, M. Staroswiecki, and A. Aitouche, “Optimal Design of Fault Tolerant Sensor

Networks,” IEEE Int. Conf. on Control Applications, pp. 467-472, Sept. 2000.
Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
 Reliability (Fault Tolerance) of a broadcast range
with N sensor nodes is calculated from

N
R ( t ) 1   [1  R ( t ) ]
k 1
k
Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
EXAMPLE:
 How many sensor nodes are needed within a
broadcast radius (range) to have 99% fault tolerated
network?
 Assuming all sensors within the radio range have
the same reliability, previous equation becomes:
N
R ( t )  1  [1  R ( t )]
 Drop t and substitute f = (1-R) 
0.99 = (1 – fN)  N=2
 Fault Tolerance (Reliability)

REMARK:

1. Protocols and algorithms may be designed

to
address the level of fault tolerance
required by
sensor networks.

2. If the environment has little interference,

then
the requirements can be more relaxed.
Fault Tolerance (Reliability)
 Examples:
1. House to keep track of humidity and temperature
levels  the sensors cannot be damaged easily or
interfered by environment  low fault tolerance
(reliability) requirement!!!!

2. Battlefield for surveillance the sensed data are critical

and sensors can be destroyed by enemies  high fault
tolerance (reliability) requirement!!!

Bottom line: Fault Tolerance (Reliability)

depends heavily on applications!!!
Scalability
 The number of sensor nodes may reach thousands
in some applications

 The density of sensor nodes can range from few to

several hundreds in a region (cluster) which can be
less than 10m in diameter
 Scalability
Node Density: The number of expected nodes per unit area :

 N /A
N is the number of scattered sensor nodes in region A
Node Degree: The number of expected nodes in the transmission range of a
node
2
 ( R )    R
R is the radio transmission range

Basically: μ(R)  is the number of sensor nodes within the transmission

radius R of each sensor node in region A.
Scalability
EXAMPLE:
Assume sensor nodes are evenly distributed in the sensor
field. Determine the node density and node degree if 200 sensor
nodes are deployed in a 50x50 m2 region where each sensor
node has a broadcast radius of 5m.

Use the eq.

  2 0 0 /( 5 0 5 0 )  0 . 0 8
2
 ( R )  0 . 0 8  5  6
Scalability
Examples:
1. Machine Diagnosis Application:
less than 50 sensor nodes in a 5 m x 5 m region.

2. Vehicle Tracking Application:

Around 10 sensor nodes per cluster/region.

3. Home Application: tens depending on the size of the house.

4. Habitat Monitoring Application:

Range from 25 to 100 nodes/cluster

5. Personal Applications:
Ranges from tens to hundreds, e.g., clothing, eye glasses, shoes, watch,
jewelry.
Production Costs
 Cost of sensors must be low so that sensor
networks can be justified!
 PicoNode: less than $1
 Bluetooth system: around $10,-
 THE OBJECTIVE FOR SENSOR COSTS
must be lower than $1!!!!!!!
 Currently  ranges from $25 to $180
(STILL VERY EXPENSIVE!!!!)
Sensor Network Topology

Sink
Internet,
Satellite, UAV

Sink
Task
Manager
Sensor Network Topology
 Topology maintenance and change:

 Pre-deployment and Deployment Phase

 Post Deployment Phase
 Re-Deployment of Additional Nodes
Sensor Network Topology
Pre-deployment and Deployment Phase
 Dropped from aircraft  (Random deployment)
 Well Planned, Fixed  (Regular deployment)
 Mobile Sensor Nodes
 Adaptive, dynamic
 Can move to compensate for deployment
shortcomings
 Can be passively moved around by some
external force (wind, water)
 Can actively seek out “interesting” areas
Sensor Network Topology
Initial Deployment Schemes
 Reduce installation cost
 Eliminate the need for any pre-organization and
pre-planning
 Increase the flexibility of arrangement
 Promote self-organization and fault-tolerance
Sensor Network Topology
POST-DEPLOYMENT PHASE
 Topology changes may occur:
 Position
 Reachability (due to jamming, noise, moving
obstacles, etc.)
 Available energy
 Malfunctioning
Operating Environment

* SEE ALL THE APPLICATIONS discussed before

TRANSMISSION MEDIA
 Radio, Infrared, Optical, Acoustic, Magnetic Media

 ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) Bands (433

MHz ISM Band in Europe and 915 MHz as well as
2.4 GHz ISM Bands in North America)

 REASONS: Free radio, huge spectrum allocation

and global availability.
POWER CONSUMPTION
 Sensor node has limited power source
 Sensor node LIFETIME depends on BATTERY lifetime
 Goal: Provide as much energy as possible at smallest
cost/volume/weight/recharge
 Recharging may or may not be an option
 Options
 Primary batteries – not rechargeable
 Secondary batteries – rechargeable, only makes
sense in combination with some form of energy
harvesting
 Battery Examples
 Energy per volume (Joule per cubic
Primary centimeter):
batteries

Chemistry Zinc-air Lithium Alkaline

Energy (J/cm3) 3780 2880 1200

Secondary batteries

Chemistry Lithium NiMHd NiCd

Energy (J/cm3) 1080 860 650

 Energy Scavenging (Harvesting)
Ambient Energy Sources (their power density)

 Solar (Outdoors) – 15 mW/cm (direct sun)

2

 Solar (Indoors) – 0.006 mW/cm (office desk)

2

0.57 mW/cm2 (<60 W desk lamp)

 Temperature Gradients – 80 W/cm2 at about 1V from a
5Kelvin temp. difference
 Vibrations – 0.01 and 0.1 mW/cm3
 Acoustic Noises – 3*10{-6} mW/cm2 at 75dB
- 9.6*10{-4} mW/cm2 at 100dB
 Nuclear Reaction – 80 mW/cm3
POWER CONSUMPTION
 Sensors can be a DATA ORIGINATOR or a DATA
ROUTER.
 Power conservation and power management are
important
  POWER AWARE COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS
must be developed.
POWER CONSUMPTION
Power Consumption
 Power consumption in a sensor network can be
divided into three domains

 Sensing
 Data Processing (Computation)
 Communication
Power Consumption
 Power consumption in a sensor network can be
divided into three domains

 Sensing
 Data Processing (Computation)
 Communication
Power Consumption
Sensing

Depends on
 Application
 Nature of sensing: Sporadic or Constant
 Detection complexity
 Ambient noise levels

Rule of thumb (ADC power consumption)

ENO B
Ps  F S  2
Fs - sensing frequency, ENOB - effective number of bits


Power Consumption
 Power consumption in a sensor network can be
divided into three domains

 Sensing
 Data Processing (Computation)
 Communication
 Power Consumption in
Data Processing (Computation)
(Wang/Chandrakarasan: Energy Efficient DSPs for Wireless Sensor
Networks. IEEE Signal Proc. Magazine, July 2002. also from Shih paper)

 The power consumption in data processing (P ) is p

2 Vdd
PP  f * C * V  V dd ( I O e
/ n *V T
dd )
 f clock frequency
 C is the aver. capacitance switched per cycle (C ~ 0.67nF);
 V is the supply voltage
dd

 V is the thermal voltage (n~21.26; Io ~ 1.196 mA)

T
Power Consumption in
Data Processing (Computation)
 The second term indicates the power loss due to
leakage currents

 In general, leakage energy accounts for about 10%

of the total energy dissipation

 In low duty cycles, leakage energy can become

large (up to 50%)
Power Consumption in
Data Processing
 This is much less than in communication.
 EXAMPLE: (Assuming: Rayleigh Fading wireless
channel; fourth power distance loss)
 Energy cost of transmitting 1 KB over a distance of
100 m is approx. equal to executing 0.25 Million
instructions by a 8 million instructions per second
processor (MicaZ).

 Local data processing is crucial in minimizing

power consumption in a multi-hop network
Memory Power Consumption
 Crucial part: FLASH memory
 Power for RAM almost negligible

 FLASH writing/erasing is expensive

 Example: FLASH on Mica motes
 Reading: ¼ 1.1 nAh per byte
 Writing: ¼ 83.3 nAh per byte
Power Consumption
 Power consumption in a sensor network can be
divided into three domains

 Sensing
 Data Processing (Computation)
 Communication
Power Consumption for
Communication
 A sensor spends maximum energy in data
communication (both for transmission and reception).

 NOTE:
 For short range communication with low radiation
power (~0 dbm), transmission and reception power
costs are approximately the same,
 e.g., modern low power short range transceivers
consume between 15 and 300 mW of power when
sending and receiving
 Transceiver circuitry has both active and start-up
power consumption
Power Consumption for
Communication

 Power consumption for data communication (Pc)

Pc = P0 + Ptx + Prx

TX RX

Ptx/rx is the power consumed in the transmitter/receiver
electronics (including the start-up power)
P is the output transmit power
0
Power Consumption for
Communication
 START-UP POWER/ START-UP TIME
 A transceiver spends upon waking up from sleep mode,
e.g., to ramp up phase locked loops or voltage
controlled oscillators.
 During start-up time, no transmission or reception of
data is possible.
 Sensors communicate in short data packets
 Start-up power starts dominating as packet size is
reduced
 It is inefficient to turn the transceiver ON and OFF
because a large amount of power is spent in turning the
transceiver back ON each time.
 Wasted Energy

 Fixed cost of communication: Startup Time

 High energy per bit for small packets (from Shih paper)
 Parameters: R=1 Mbps; Tst ~ 450 msec, Pte~81mW; Pout = 0 dBm
 Energy vs Packet Size
TR 1000 (115kbps)
60
50

Energy per Bit Ebit(pJ) 40

(pJ) 30
20
10
0
10 100 1000 10000

Packet Size (bits)

As packet size is reduced the energy consumption is dominated by the startup time on the order
of hundreds of microseconds during which large amounts of power is wasted.
NOTE: During start-up time NO DATA CAN BE SENT or RECEIVED by the
transceiver.
Start-Up and Switching
 Startup energy consumption
Est = PLO x tst
P LO , power consumption of the circuitry
(synthesizer and VCO); tst, time required to start up
all components
 Energy is consumed when transceiver switches
from transmit to receive mode
 Switching energy consumption
Esw = PLO x tsw
Start-Up Time and Sleep Mode
 The effect of the transceiver startup time will
greatly depend on the type of MAC protocol used.

 To minimize power consumption, it is desirable to

have the transceiver in a sleep mode as much as
possible
 Energy savings up to 99.99% (59.1mW  3mW)
 BUT…
Constantly turning on and off the transceiver also
consumes energy to bring it to readiness for
transmission or reception.
Receiving and Transmitting Energy
Consumption
 Receiving energy consumption
Erx = (PLO + PRX ) trx
P RX, power consumption of active components, e.g.,
decoder, trx, time it takes to receive a packet
 Transmitting energy consumption
Etx = (PLO + PPA ) ttx
P PA, power consumption of power amplifier
PPA = 1/ Pout
 power efficiency of power amplifier, P
out , desired
RF output power level
RF output power

http://memsic.com/support/documentation/wireless-sensor-networks/category/7-datasheets.html?download=148%3Amicaz
Power Amplifier Power Consumption
 Receiving energy consumption
PPA = 1/∙ PA ∙ r ∙ dn

 PA , amplifier constant (antenna gain, wavelength,

thermal noise power spectral density, desired
signal to noise ratio (SNR) at distance d),
 r, data rate,
 n, path loss exponent of the channel (n=2-4)
 d, distance between nodes
Let’s put it together…
 Energy consumption for communication
Ec = Est + Erx + Esw + Etx
= PLO tst + (PLO + PRX)trx + PLO tsw + (PLO+PPA)ttx

 Let t rx = ttx = lPKT/r

Ec = PLO (tst+tsw)+(2PLO + PRX)lPKT/r + 1/∙ PA ∙ lPKT ∙ dn

Distance-independent Distance-dependent
 A SIMPLE ENERGY MODEL
ETx (k,D)
Etx (k,D) = Etx-elec (k) + Etx-amp (k,D)
ETx-elec (k) ETx-amp (k,D)
Etx (k,D) = Eelec * k + eamp * k * D2
ERx (k) = Erx-elec (k) k bit packet
Transmit
Tx
ERx (k) = Eelec * k Electronics
Amplifier
Operation Energy
Dissipated D
Eelec * k eamp* k* D2
Transmitter Electronics ( ETx-elec)

Receiver Electronics ( ERx-elec) 50 nJ/bit

( ETx-elec = ERx-elec = Eelec )

ERx (k)
k bit packet

Receive
Transmit Amplifier {eamp} 100 Electronics
pJ/bit/m2

Eelec * k
Power Consumption
(A Simple Energy Model)
Assuming a sensor node is only operating in transmit and
receive modes with the following assumptions:
 Energy to run circuitry:

Eelec = 50 nJ/bit
 Energy for radio transmission:

eamp = 100 pJ/bit/m2

 Energy for sending k bits over distance D

ETx (k,D) = Eelec * k + eamp * k * D2

 Energy for receiving k bits:

ERx (k,D) = Eelec * k

 Example using the Simple Energy Model

What is the energy consumption if 1 Mbit of

information is transferred from the source to the sink
where the source and sink are separated by 100
meters and the broadcast radius of each node is 5
meters?

Assume the neighbor nodes are overhearing each

other’s broadcast.
 EXAMPLE
100 meters / 5 meters = 20 pairs of transmitting and
receiving nodes (one node transmits and one node receives)

ETx (k,D) = Eelec * k + eamp * k * D2

ETx = 50 nJ/bit . 106 + 100 pJ/bit/m2 . 106 . 52 =
= 0.05J + 0.0025 J = 0.0525 J

ERx (k,D) = Eelec * k

ERx = 0.05 J

Epair = ETx + ERx = 0.1025J

ET = 20 . Epair = 20. 0.1025J = 2.050 J
 VERY DETAILED ENERGY MODEL
 Simple Energy Consumption Model
E  Po n T o n  P s l e e p T s l e e p
 A More Realistic ENERGY MODEL*
  
L
 
 4 1  2 2 BTo n  
 4  L
   
E  1    N f  2
2  BTo n
 1 ln   G BT  P T  2 P T  / L
 3   L d on c on syn tr

  Pb
 BTon 
 
 
* S. Cui, et.al., “Energy-Constrained Modulation
Optimization,” IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communications,
September 2005.
 Details of the Realistic Model

L – packet length

 1 B – channel bandwidth
 Nf – receiver noise figure
2 – power spectrum energy

M 1 Pb – probability of bit error

 3 Gd – power gain factor
M 1 Pc – circuit power consumption
L Psyn – frequency synthesizer power
BTon consumption
M 2 Ttr – frequency synthesizer settling time (duration of
transient mode)
Ton – transceiver on time
M – Modulation parameter
 ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Enery Consumption: Important Variables:

Pre  4.5 mA (energy consumption at receiver)

Pte  12.0 mA (energy consumption at transmitter)
Pcl  12.0 mA  (basic consumption without radio)
Psl  8mA (0.008 mA)  (energy needed to sleep)
 EXAMPLE

Capacity (Watt) = Current (Ampere) * Voltage (Volt)

Rough estimation for energy consumption and sensor lifetime:

Let us assume that each sensor should wake up once a

second, measure a value and transmit it over the network.

a) Calculations needed: 5K instructions (for measurement and

preparation for sending)

b) Time to send information: 50 bytes for sensor data,

(another 250 byte for forwarding external data)

c) Energy needed to sleep for the rest of the time (sleep

mode)
 EXAMPLE

Time for Calculations and Energy Consumption:

 MSP430 running at 8 MHz clock rate  one cycle

takes 1/(8*106) seconds

 1 instruction needs an average of 3 cycles  3/

(8* 106) sec, 5K instructions, 15/(8*103) sec

 15/(8*103) * 12mA = 180/8000 = 0.0225 mAs

 EXAMPLE

Time for Sending Data and Energy Consumption:

 Radio sends with 19.200 baud (approx. 19.200 bits/sec)

  1 bit takes 1/19200 seconds
 We have to send 50 bytes (own measurement)
and we have to forward 250 bytes (external
data): 250+50=300 which takes
300*8/19200s*24mA (energy basic + sending) = 3mAs
 EXAMPLE

Energy consumed while sleeping:

 Time for calculation 15/8000 + time for transmission

 300*8/19200 ~ 0.127 sec
 Time for sleep mode = 1 sec – 0.127 = 0.873 s
 Energy consumed while sleeping
 0.008mA * 0.873 s = 0.0007 mAs
 EXAMPLE

Total Amount of energy and resulting lifetime :

The ESB needs to be supplied with 4.5 V so we need

3 * 1.5V AA batteries.

3*(0.0225 + 3 + 0.007) ~ 3 * 3.03 mWs

Energy of 3AA battery ~ 3 * 2300 mAh = 3*2300*60*60 mWs

Total lifetime  3*2300*60*60/3*3.03 ~ 32 days.

 EXAMPLE

NOTES:
 Battery suffers from large current (losing about 10% energy/year)
 Small network (forwarding takes only 250 bytes)

Most important:
 Only sending was taken into account, not receiving
 If we listen into the channel rather than sleeping 0.007 mA has to be
replaced by (12+4.5)mA
which results in a lifetime of ~ 5 days.
 Power Consumption for Communication
(Detailed Formula)

Pc  N T [ Pte ( T o n  T s t )  PO ( T o n )]  N R [ P r e ( R o n  R s t )]
where
Pte is power consumed by transmitter
NT is the number of times transmitter
Pre is power consumed by receiver
is switched “on” per unit of time
PO is output power of transmitter
Ton is transmitter “on” time NR is the number of times receiver
Ron is receiver “on” time is switched “on” per unit of time
Tst is start-up time for transmitter
Rst is start-up time for receiver
E. Shih et al.,”Physical Layer Driven Protocols and Algorithm Design for
Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks”, ACM MobiCom, Rome, July
2001.
Power Consumption for
Communication
T =L/R
on
 where L is the packet size in bits and R is the
data rate.
 NT and NR depend on MAC and applications!!!
 What can we do to Reduce Energy Consumption

 Multiple Power Consumption Modes

 Way out: Do not run sensor node at full operation all the
time
 If nothing to do, switch to power safe mode
 Question: When to throttle down? How to wake up
again?
 Typical modes
 Controller: Active, idle, sleep
 Radio mode: Turn on/off
transmitter/receiver, both
 Multiple Power Consumption Modes

 Multiple modes possible 

“Deeper” sleep modes
Strongly depends on hardware
TI MSP 430, e.g.: four different sleep modes
Atmel ATMega: six different modes
 Multiple Power Consumption Modes
 Microcontroller
 TI MSP 430
Fully operation 1.2 mW
Deepest sleep mode 0.3 W – only woken up by
external interrupts (not even timer is running any
more)
 Atmel ATMega
Operational mode: 15 mW active, 6 mW idle
Sleep mode: 75 W
 Switching between Modes

 Simplest idea: Greedily switch to lower mode whenever

possible
 Problem: Time and power consumption required to reach
higher modes not negligible
 Introduces overhead
 Switching only pays off if Esaved > Eoverhead
 Switching between Modes

 Example: Event-triggered wake up from sleep mode

 Scheduling problem with uncertainty

Esaved
Eoverhead
Pactive

Psleep
t1 tevent time
tdown tup
Alternative: Dynamic Voltage Scaling
 Switching modes complicated by uncertainty on
how long a sleep time is available
 Alternative: Low supply voltage & clock
 Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS)
 A controller running at a lower speed, i.e., lower
clock rates, consumes less power
 Reason: Supply voltage can be reduced at lower
clock rates while still guaranteeing correct
operation
Alternative: Dynamic Voltage Scaling

 Reducing the voltage is a very efficient way to reduce

power consumption.
 Actual power consumption P depends quadratically
on the supply voltage VDD, thus,

P ~ VDD2

 Reduce supply voltage to decrease energy

consumption !
Alternative: Dynamic Voltage Scaling
 Gate delay also depends on supply voltage
V dd
Tg  a
K (V dd  V th )
 K and a are processor dependent (a ~ 2)

 Gate switch period T =1/f

0

 For efficient operation

Tg <= To

69
 Alternative: Dynamic Voltage Scaling
 f is the switching frequency
a
K (V d d  V th )
f  ~ K (V d d  c )
Vdd

 where a, K, c and V are processor dependent variables (e.g.,

th
K=239.28 Mhz/V, a=2, and c=0.5)

 REMARK: For a given processor the maximum performance f of the

processor is determined by the power supply voltage V dd and vice
versa.

 NOTE: For minimal energy dissipation, a processor should operate

at the lowest voltage for a given clock frequency
Computation vs. Communication Energy
cost
 Tradeoff?
 Directly comparing computation/communication
energy cost not possible
 But: put them into perspective!
 Energy ratio of “sending one bit” vs. “computing
one instruction”: Anything between 220 and 2900
in the literature
 To communicate (send & receive) one kilobyte =
computing three million instructions!
Computation vs. Communication Energy
Cost
 BOTTOMLINE
 Try to compute instead of communicate
whenever possible
 Key technique in WSN – in-network processing!
 Exploit compression schemes, intelligent coding
schemes, aggregation, filtering, …
BOTTOMLINE:
Many Ways to Optimize Power Consumption
 Power aware computing
 Ultra-low power microcontrollers
 Dynamic power management HW
 Dynamic voltage scaling (e.g Intel’s PXA, Transmeta’s
Crusoe)
 Components that switch off after some idle time
 Energy aware software
 Power aware OS: dim displays, sleep on idle times, power
aware scheduling
 Power management of radios
 Sometimes listen overhead larger than transmit overhead
BOTTOMLINE:
Many Ways to Optimize Power Consumption
 Energy aware packet forwarding
 Radio automatically forwards packets at a lower
power level, while the rest of the node is asleep
 Energy aware wireless communication
 Exploit performance energy tradeoffs of the
communication subsystem, better neighbor
coordination, choice of modulation schemes
 COMPARISON
Mote

Bluetooth Energy Idle Startup

per bit current time

IEEE 802.11

Tx Energy per Idle Startup

Technology Data Rate
Current bit Current time

Mote 76.8 Kbps 10 mA 430 nJ/bit 7 mA Low

Bluetooth 1 Mbps 45 mA 149 nJ/bit 22 mA Medium

802.11 11 Mbps 300 mA 90 nJ/bit 160 mA High