Energy consumption evaluations of cluster-based sensor nodes with IEEE 802.15.4 transceiver in flat Rayleigh fading channel

This paper studies the energy consumption of cluster-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which comprise sensor nodes carrying the transceivers on the basis of the Direct Spread Sequence Spectrum (DSSS) techniques as per the IEEE 802.15.4 standard to transmit data over the AWGN channel with flat Rayleigh fading. To this end, clarifications are made on the bit error rate (BER) expressions for the considered transceivers in the presence of AWGN and the flat Rayleigh fading. Based on the presented BER expressions, the node energy consumption is evaluated in the cluster-based WSNs that are formed by running representative clustering algorithm via simulations. Parameters for the evaluations take values from the off-the-shelf transceivers in compliance with IEEE 802.15.4. The numerical results manifest the large energy expenditures on compensating the Rayleigh fading to accomplish reliable data transmissions.