Coverage and density of a low power, low data rate, spread spectrum wireless sensor network for agricultural monitoring

A physical layer specification for a low power, low complexity, low data rate sensor network suitable for agricultural monitoring is investigated. Code division multiple access (CDMA) with high processing gain is used to facilitate transmission powers which comply with the Ultra Wide Band (UWB) spectral mask, and this permits physically small nodes with limited energy storage capacity. The interference arising from each node is calculated, and it is shown that for the investigated scenario and specification, an aggregate data rate of 2 bytes per minute and a node population of approximately 1000 can be supported at distances up to a few kilometres from the central node, with less than 0.2% chance of failure due to multiple access interference.