An evaluation of cooperation transmission considering practical energy models and passive reception

The total energy consumed by the radios is compared for a cooperative transmission (CT) protocol and a non-CT routing protocol, in a two-hop, single cluster, ad hoc network. The radio energy model is a function of parameter sets that are typically found in radio specifications. The protocols are compared for five different parameter sets, corresponding to five different existing radios. The CT protocol is the Opportunistic Large Array (OLA). The non-CT protocol simply selects one node from the cluster to forward the packet, but other nodes in the cluster that do not relay are assumed to overhear or decode at least part of the packets. The relative energy consumption is determined as a function of the fraction of the data packet that is decoded by the node for decision-making. CT is shown to be beneficial for certain decoding fractions and for certain radio parameter sets.