Title: Practical issues in the development of a minimalistic power management solution for WSNs

Authors: Jorge M. Soares, Bruno J. Goncalves, Rui M. Rocha

Addresses: Instituto Superior Tecnico – Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Dr. Cavaco Silva, 2744-016 Porto Salvo, Lisbon, Portugal. ' Instituto Superior Tecnico – Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Dr. Cavaco Silva, 2744-016 Porto Salvo, Lisbon, Portugal. ' Instituto de Telecomunicacoes, Instituto Superior Tecnico – Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Prof. Dr. Cavaco Silva, 2744-016 Porto Salvo, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract: A flexible Wireless Sensor Network platform for implementation of diverse applications has been developed and deployed at Instituto Superior Tecnico – Technical University of Lisbon (IST-TUL). Since its initial deployment in 2007, this testbed has grown steadily, supporting new nodes, applications and experiments. However, some initial problems, which were solved on an ad hoc basis, were becoming more serious as the network spanned throughout the campus. Major issues, like global power management, have to be tackled not only with traditional protocol level approaches but also from a system|s viewpoint, providing solutions capable of guaranteeing a consistent testbed. We discuss the main issues related with the development of power management solutions, presenting our architecture, design choices and implementation, and address the lessons learnt from its integration. Experimental evaluation of our solution has shown considerable energy savings, extending network lifetime by up to nine times.

Keywords: power management; WSN testbeds; radio cycling; time synchronisation; synchronous rounds; energy efficiency; energy saving; development issues; infrastructure services; network protocols; ad-hoc sensor networks; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; ad-hoc networks; network lifetime.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2010.036189

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2010 Vol.8 No.3/4, pp.136 - 146

Published online: 27 Oct 2010 *

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