Optimisation of energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks using error control codes

Energy saving optimisation is a prime concern in the design of Wireless Sensor Networks as sensor nodes are deployed in different terrains where no source of power supply is available and sensor devices are operated by battery. The energy consumption of a sensor node is a function of internodes distance, desired BER, channel conditions, operating frequency, modulation schemes and error correcting codes (ECC). In this paper, we present a systematic approach to explore a design space to find an energy-optimal ECC in wireless sensor networks (WSN). ECC provides coding gain, resulting in transmitter energy saving at the cost of added decoder power. Further, for coded transmission, it is shown that that benefit of coding gain varies with the transmission distance referred as crossover distance (d_xo).