Energy-efficient cooperative image transmission over wireless sensor networks

In this paper we propose an energy efficient image transmission strategy for wireless sensor networks, which combines wavelet-based image decomposition and cooperative communication. In the proposed scheme we use selective decode-and-forward (SDF) cooperation, so that a relay node collaborates with the source by forwarding only a lower-resolution version of the original image, obtained via discrete wavelet transform (DWT). We show that the proposed SDF-DWT strategy is more energy efficient than non-cooperative single-hop and multi-hop, also outperforming the regular SDF scheme. In addition, we show that our method can achieve the energy efficiency of incremental DF (IDF), without the need of a feedback channel.