Performance of a partner selection algorithm in IEEE 802.15.4 based wireless sensor networks

Selection of an appropriate relaying partner can be used to increase the network lifetime of a wireless sensor network. In this paper, the effectiveness of cooperative relaying in an IEEE 802.15.4 compatible wireless sensor network is investigated. The worst link first coding gain-based partner selection algorithm is applied together with a transmit power level that fulfilled a given outage criterion. Error rates are also evaluated. It is proven through simulations that cooperation can provide a significant energy reduction at a similar performance in terms of outage and error rate when compared to no cooperation. We have shown that this reduced energy increases the lifetime for the network by an order of 102 to 103 which is significant in practical wireless sensor networks where sensor nodes have limited energy supply.