Analysis of Energy Consumption on Data Sharing in Beamforming for Wireless Sensor Networks

Collaborative beamforming is a transmission technique by using multiple transmitters to form antenna arrays and creating highly directional beams to a distant receiver. Collaborative beamforming can enhance energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks. However, the same information needs to be shared among the transmitters in advance. As a result, communication among the transmitters is required; this consumes energy and shortens the lifetime of the sensor network. In this paper, we propose a procedure for data sharing when multiple sensing nodes and multiple transmitters are used and examine the energy consumption for beamforming. We show that beamforming is energy-efficient when the sensor nodes are deployed far away from the base station and the energy consumed for data sharing has negligible effects on the network's lifetime.