Receiver-Sensitivity Control for Energy-Efficient IoT Networks

To increase energy efficiency of receiver-dominated nodes in IoT networks, we introduce Receiver-Sensitivity Control (RSC). RSC enables a trade-off between communication range and reception efforts. This trade-off is achieved through multiple receiver-sensitivity levels that can be adjusted at run time. The receiver can operate on lower sensitivity levels with reduced power consumption and conserve energy if the received signal quality is sufficiently high or otherwise use higher sensitivity levels to avoid packet re-transmissions. We evaluate the technique in a simulation of a realistic network scenario. The results show substantial energy savings of about 10-20% for better-than-worst-case channel conditions.