Comparing the Life Time of Terrestrial Wireless Sensor Networks by Employing Hybrid FSO/RF and Only RF Access Networks

The increased interest in long lasting wireless sensor networks motivates to use Free Space Optics (FSO) link along with radio frequency (RF) link for communication. Earlier results show that RF/FSO wireless sensor networks has life time twice as long as RF only wireless sensor networks. However, for terrestrial applications, the effect of weather such as rain or snow on optical wireless communication link is major concern, that should be taken into account in the performance analysis. In this paper, life time performance of hybrid wireless sensor networks is compared to wireless sensor networks using RF only for terrestrial applications and weather effects of rain and snow.