A path energy control technique for energy efficiency on wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are being deployed in a wide range of application areas requiring high energetic efficiency to increase the application lifetime. Trading off power optimization and reliability has become one of the most significant concerns when dealing with modern systems based on WSNs to guarantee all nodes receive the transmitted data. This work presents a Path Energy Control Technique (PECT), which sets the transmission power of each node based on the path energy consumption. This setting blends three metrics: (i) Quality of the Path (QPth), (ii) Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), and (iii) Data Packet Rate (DPR). Experimental results prove the efficacy of PECT in reducing the energy consumption up to 42% when compared to experiments with fixed transmission power, preserving the reliability of the data transmission.