Wireless distance estimation with low-power standard components in wireless sensor nodes

In the context of increasing use of moving wireless sensor nodes the interest in localizing these nodes in their application environment is strongly rising. For many applications, it is necessary to know the exact position of the nodes in two- or three-dimensional space. Commonly used nodes use state-of-the-art transceivers like the CC430 from Texas Instruments with integrated signal strength measurement for this purpose. This has the disadvantage, that the signal strength measurement is strongly dependent on the orientation of the node through the antennas inhomogeneous radiation pattern as well as it has a small accuracy on long ranges. Also, the nodes overall attenuation and output power has to be calibrated and interference and multipath effects appear in closed environments. Another possibility to trilaterate the position of a sensor node is the time of flight measurement. This has the advantage, that the position can also be estimated on long ranges, where signal strength methods give only poor accuracy. In this paper we present an investigation of the suitability of the state-of-the-art transceiver CC430 for a system based on time of flight methods and give an overview of the optimal settings under various circumstances for the in-field application. For this investigation, the systematic and statistical errors in the time of flight measurements with the CC430 have been investigated under a multitude of parameters. Our basic system does not use any additional components but only the given standard hardware, which can be found on the Texas Instruments evaluation board for a CC430. Thus, it can be implemented on already existent sensor node networks by a simple software upgrade.Comment: 8 pages, Proceedings of the 14th Mechatronics Forum International Conference, Mechatronics 201

Has time come to switch from duty-cycled MAC protocols to wake-up radio for wireless sensor networks?

Duty-cycled Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols certainly improve the energy efficiency of wireless networks. However, most of these protocols still suffer from severe degrees of overhearing and idle listening. These two issues prevent optimum energy usage, a crucial aspect in energy-constrained wireless networks such as wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wake-up radio (WuR) systems drastically reduce these problems by completely switching off the nodes' microcontroller unit (MCU) and main radio transceiver until a secondary, extremely low-power receiver is triggered by a particular wireless transmission, the so called wake-up call. Unfortunately, most WuR studies focus on theoretical platforms and/or custom-built simulators. Both these factors reduce the associated usefulness of the obtained results. In this paper, we model and simulate a real, recent, and promising WuR hardware platform developed by the authors. The simulation model uses time and energy consumption values obtained in the laboratory and does not rely on custom-built simulation engines, but rather on the OMNET++ simulator. The performance of the WuR platform is compared to four of the most well-known and widely employed MAC protocols for WSN under three real-world network deployments. The paper demonstrates how the use of our WuR platform presents numerous benefits in several areas, from energy efficiency and latency to packet delivery ratio and applicability, and provides the essential information for serious consideration of switching duty-cycled MAC-based networks to WuR.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Performance evaluation and comparative analysis of SubCarrier Modulation Wake-up radio systems for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks

Energy-efficient communication is one of the main concerns of wireless sensor networks nowadays. A commonly employed approach for achieving energy efficiency has been the use of duty-cycled operation of the radio, where the node’s transceiver is turned off and on regularly, listening to the radio channel for possible incoming communication during its on-state. Nonetheless, such a paradigm performs poorly for scenarios of low or bursty traffic because of unnecessary activations of the radio transceiver. As an alternative technology, Wake-up Radio (WuR) systems present a promising energy-efficient network operation, where target devices are only activated in an on-demand fashion by means of a special radio signal and a WuR receiver. In this paper, we analyze a novel wake-up radio approach that integrates both data communication and wake-up functionalities into one platform, providing a reconfigurable radio operation. Through physical experiments, we characterize the delay, current consumption and overall operational range performance of this approach under different transmit power levels. We also present an actual single-hop WuR application scenario, as well as demonstrate the first true multi-hop capabilities of a WuR platform and simulate its performance in a multi-hop scenario. Finally, by thorough qualitative comparisons to the most relevant WuR proposals in the literature, we state that the proposed WuR system stands out as a strong candidate for any application requiring energy-efficient wireless sensor node communications.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Has Time Come to Switch From Duty-Cycled MAC Protocols to Wake-Up Radio for Wireless Sensor Networks?

Duty-cycled Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols certainly improve the energy efficiency of wireless networks. However, most of these protocols still suffer from severe degrees of overhearing and idle listening. These two issues prevent optimum energy usage, a crucial aspect in energy-constrained wireless networks such as wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wake-up radio (WuR) systems drastically reduce these problems by completely switching off the nodes' microcontroller unit (MCU) and main radio transceiver until a secondary, extremely low-power receiver is triggered by a particular wireless transmission, the so called wake-up call. Unfortunately, most WuR studies focus on theoretical platforms and/or custom-built simulators. Both these factors reduce the associated usefulness of the obtained results. In this paper, we model and simulate a real, recent, and promising WuR hardware platform developed by the authors. The simulation model uses time and energy consumption values obtained in the laboratory and does not rely on custom-built simulation engines, but rather on the OMNET++ simulator. The performance of the WuR platform is compared to four of the most well-known and widely employed MAC protocols for WSN under three real-world network deployments. The paper demonstrates how the use of our WuR platform presents numerous benefits in several areas, from energy efficiency and latency to packet delivery ratio and applicability, and provides the essential information for serious consideration of switching duty-cycled MAC-based networks to WuR

A study of hydrodynamic radiation pressures around two-dimensional single and twin sections oscillating in or below the free surface

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:9110.2555(NAOE--84-53) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Wake-up radio as an energy-efficient alternative to conventional wireless sensor networks MAC protocols

The use of duty-cycling in Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols effectively helps improving the energy efficiency of wireless networks. However, while the benefits of these protocols are unquestionable, most of them still suffer from overhearing and idle listening, two issues that prevent duty-cycled systems from achieving optimum energy usage, which is a crucial aspect in specific types of wireless networks such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN).Wake-up Radio (WuR) systems have been employed recently to overcome these issues. Under this approach, the nodes' MicroController Unit (MCU) and main radio transceiver are completely switched off and only activated when a secondary, extremely low-power receiver in the node is triggered by a particular wireless transmission. Wake-up Radio systems allow for drastic energy savings since receiver nodes are only activated on-demand, maximizing their battery lifetimes. In this paper, we have modeled and simulated a real, recent and promising WuR hardware platform based on its time and energy consumption characterization. By comparing such WuR approach to B-MAC and IEEE 802.15.4, two well-known and widely employed MAC protocols, we show it effectively out-performs the conventional WSN MAC approaches in terms of energy efficiency. To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study to include a comparative analysis for multi-hop networks based on a real WuR platform, which shows WuR systems represent an energy-efficient solution that also provides a good tradeoff between latency, packet delivery ratio and applicability..Peer Reviewe

Performance evaluation and compartive analysis of subcarrier modulation Wake-up radio systems for energy-efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy-efficient communication is one of the main concerns of wireless sensor networks nowadays. A commonly employed approach for achieving energy efficiency has been the use of duty-cycled operation of the radio, where the node’s transceiver is turned off and on regularly, listening to the radio channel for possible incoming communication during its on-state. Nonetheless, such a paradigm performs poorly for scenarios of low or bursty traffic because of unnecessary activations of the radio transceiver. As an alternative technology, Wake-up Radio (WuR) systems present a promising energy-efficient network operation, where target devices are only activated in an on-demand fashion by means of a special radio signal and a WuR receiver. In this paper, we analyze a novel wake-up radio approach that integrates both data communication and wake-up functionalities into one platform, providing a reconfigurable radio operation. Through physical experiments, we characterize the delay, current consumption and overall operational range performance of this approach under different transmit power levels. We also present an actual single-hop WuR application scenario, as well as demonstrate the first true multi-hop capabilities of a WuR platform and simulate its performance in a multi-hop scenario. Finally, by thorough qualitative comparisons to the most relevant WuR proposals in the literature, we state that the proposed WuR system stands out as a strong candidate for any application requiring energy-efficient wireless sensor node communications.Peer Reviewe

Has time come to switch from duty-cycled MAC protocols to wake-up radio for wireless sensor networks?

Duty-cycled Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols certainly improve the energy efficiency of wireless networks. However, most of these protocols still suffer from severe degrees of overhearing and idle listening. These two issues prevent optimum energy usage, a crucial aspect in energy-constrained wireless networks such as wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Wake-up radio (WuR) systems drastically reduce these problems by completely switching off the nodes' microcontroller unit (MCU) and main radio transceiver until a secondary, extremely low-power receiver is triggered by a particular wireless transmission, the so called wake-up call. Unfortunately, most WuR studies focus on theoretical platforms and/or custom-built simulators. Both these factors reduce the associated usefulness of the obtained results. In this paper, we model and simulate a real, recent, and promising WuR hardware platform developed by the authors. The simulation model uses time and energy consumption values obtained in the laboratory and does not rely on custom-built simulation engines, but rather on the OMNET++ simulator. The performance of the WuR platform is compared to four of the most well-known and widely employed MAC protocols for WSN under three real-world network deployments. The paper demonstrates how the use of our WuR platform presents numerous benefits in several areas, from energy efficiency and latency to packet delivery ratio and applicability, and provides the essential information for serious consideration of switching duty-cycled MAC-based networks to WuR.Peer Reviewe

Performance evaluation and comparative analysis of SubCarrier Modulation Wake-up radio systems for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks

Energy-efficient communication is one of the main concerns of wireless sensor networks nowadays. A commonly employed approach for achieving energy efficiency has been the use of duty-cycled operation of the radio, where the node’s transceiver is turned off and on regularly, listening to the radio channel for possible incoming communication during its on-state. Nonetheless, such a paradigm performs poorly for scenarios of low or bursty traffic because of unnecessary activations of the radio transceiver. As an alternative technology, Wake-up Radio (WuR) systems present a promising energy-efficient network operation, where target devices are only activated in an on-demand fashion by means of a special radio signal and a WuR receiver. In this paper, we analyze a novel wake-up radio approach that integrates both data communication and wake-up functionalities into one platform, providing a reconfigurable radio operation. Through physical experiments, we characterize the delay, current consumption and overall operational range performance of this approach under different transmit power levels. We also present an actual single-hop WuR application scenario, as well as demonstrate the first true multi-hop capabilities of a WuR platform and simulate its performance in a multi-hop scenario. Finally, by thorough qualitative comparisons to the most relevant WuR proposals in the literature, we state that the proposed WuR system stands out as a strong candidate for any application requiring energy-efficient wireless sensor node communications.Peer Reviewe