Combined cooperative communication and multicast for minimum power cost in coded wireless sensor networks

This paper considers the problem of power allocation for cooperative communication with multicast in coded wireless sensor networks (WSNs). We formulate and solve the problem using a cross-layer optimization framework, in which a simplified cooperative communication scheme that does not require channel state information (CSI) is considered. When compared against conventional cooperative and non-cooperative communication schemes under the same packet error rate (PER) objectives, the performance analysis shows that the simplified cooperative communication scheme achieves the lowest power cost. We then combine the simplified cooperative communication scheme with multicast using a linear optimization model, and show that for a random network topology, up to 40% power saving is achieved under stringent PER objectives.