Title: An efficient Sw/Hw architecture for cooperative transmission in wireless sensor networks

Authors: Nesrine Atitallah; Kais Loukil; Mohamed Abid; Hela Hakim; Mohammed S. BenSalah

Addresses: Computer and Embedded System Laboratory (CES), National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), Digital Research Centre of Sfax (CRNS), University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia ' Computer and Embedded System Laboratory (CES), National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), Digital Research Centre of Sfax (CRNS), University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia ' Computer and Embedded System Laboratory (CES), National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), Digital Research Centre of Sfax (CRNS), University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia ' COSIM Laboratory, Higher School of Communication of Tunis, Ariana, Tunisia; Digital Research Centre of Sfax (CRNS), Sfax, Tunisia ' National Centre for Electronics, Communications and Photonics Research, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Since relaying algorithms are intensive computing tasks, the software/hardware (Sw/Hw) co-design reaches a good compromise between energy efficiency and performances (workload and real-time). This paper investigates the design of a Cooperative Transmission Technique (CTT) for low-power communication in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) using two architectures. The first one is a pure software implementation based on an embedded soft-core processor. The validation of the proposed technique in real design is performed. Then, the identification of the most critical time and energy consuming tasks is performed using the profiling technique. An efficient Sw/Hw architecture (second) based on soft-core processor with accelerator modules is deduced. Indeed, hardware acceleration of the CTT is implemented on a System on Chip (SoC) to achieve low-power consumption level, reduced execution time as well as low-resource occupancy. Experimental results of the Sw/Hw implementation demonstrate significant improvements in terms of performance metrics compared with the Sw implementation.

Keywords: cooperative transmission technique; power efficiency; sensor node design; Sw/Hw co-design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWMC.2019.103114

International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing, 2019 Vol.17 No.4, pp.367 - 377

Received: 29 Jun 2018
Accepted: 01 Jun 2019
Published online: 15 Oct 2019 *

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