An energy-efficient wireless sensor network for precision agriculture

The use of wireless sensor networks is essential to implementation of information and control technologies in application areas such as precision agriculture. We design MAC and Network layers for a wireless sensor network deployed for a precision agriculture application which requires periodic collection of sensor readings from fixed locations in a field. The Physical layer consists of a radio which operates in multiple power levels in the transmit mode and multiple sensitivity levels in the receive mode. The MAC layer is designed to save energy during the wake-up synchronization phase. The network layer is designed to custom fit the needs of the application, namely periodic data collection from fixed locations, and to minimize the energy consumption through balancing the communication load. The design of various protocol layers involves a cross-layer design strategy, taking into consideration the requirements and the characteristics of the application.