PowWow : Power Optimized Hardware/Software Framework for Wireless Motes

An energy-efficient platform for wireless sensor networks and its dedicated software framework are described and optimizations are proposed at both hardware and software level. The hardware is based on low cost and low power components linked in a multilayer architecture. Some processing, such as error correcting codes, are accelerated by a low power FPGA and the platform offers the possibility to dynamically adapt the voltage and the frequency of the processor. Finally the software system implementing the protocols stack has a very small memory foot print. Some parameters optimizations are then proposed at lower protocol layers to decrease the global energy consumption of the platform. The medium access protocol relies on an asynchronous rendez-vous scheme initiated by the receiver, and the wake-up interval can be tuned to increase the lifetime of the network. The influence of error correcting codes on the energy consumption is evaluated and some promising cooperative strategies, based on relay and distributed space-time codes are proposed.