A framework for energy-scalable communication in high-density wireless networks

Power-aware communication is essential for maximizing the lifetime of energy-constrained wireless devices. Applications running on such devices can cooperatively reduce communication energy by trading communication latency, reliability, or range for energy savings. We introduce a framework that exposes these high level trade-offs to a power-aware communication subsystem featuring variable-strength convolutional coding, an adjustable power amplifier, and a voltage-scaled processor. An application programming interface (API) exposes an applications minimum quality constraints on the communication. These constraints are translated into energy-efficient parameter settings for the communication hardware. We apply our framework to improved communication energy models and measurements from a wireless microsensor node to effect over an order of magnitude of energy scalability.