Minimum energy-per-bit multi-hop wireless networks

In this paper, the tradeoff between the total energy consumption and the end-to-end rate in wireless multi-hop networks is considered. An energy consumption model that incorporates both the energy radiated by the transmitter and the energy consumed by the circuits that process the received signals is proposed. The end-to-end rate of communication is considered for the number of information bits transmitted (end-to-end) per coded symbol transmitted by any node in the network that is forwarding the data. The tradeoff between the minimum total energy consumption and the end-to-end rate of communication is analyzed. It is shown that the performance (either energy or rate) depends on the transmission strategy of each node, the location of the relay nodes and the data rate used by each node. Two communication schemes that capture the inherent constraints of networks, bandwidth and energy respectively are then investigated. For a given distribution of relays it is shown that the total energy consumption can be minimized with an optimal selection of end-to-end rate for both schemes.