Adaptive image transfer for wireless sensor networks (WSNs)

When using wireless sensor networks for real-time data transmission, some critical points should be considered. Restricted computational power, memory limitations, narrow bandwidth and energy supplied present strong limits in sensor nodes. Therefore, maximizing network lifetime and minimizing energy consumption are always optimization goals. To reduce the energy consumption of the sensor network during image transmission, an energy efficient image compression scheme is proposed. The image compression scheme reduces the required memory. To address the abovementioned concerns, in this paper we describe an approach of image transmission in WSNs, taking advantage of JPEG2000 still image compression standard and using MATLAB and C from Jasper. JPEG2000 provides a practical set of features, not necessarily available in the previous standards. These features were achieved using techniques: the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), and Embedded Block Coding with Optimized Truncation (EBCOT). Performance of the proposed image compression scheme is investigated with respect to image quality and energy consumption. Simulation results are presented and show that the proposed scheme optimizes network lifetime and reduces significantly the amount of required memory by analyzing the functional influence of each parameter of this distributed image compression algorithm.