Energy efficient channel coding based on position awareness and radio link budget estimation

This paper proposes a novel approach to energy efficient data transmission based on radio link estimation and adaptive channel coding. A channel protection algorithm is proposed to achieve efficient transmission (in terms of bit error rate), while reducing as much as possible power consumption and transmission bandwidth. The algorithm has been implemented and integrated within an experimental set-up based on a narrowband "ad hoc" network. It has been evaluated through field trials carried out in a hilly region with terrain characteristics that reproduce a variety of situations. The adopted simplified propagation model is based on the well-known knife-edge approximation while the radio link budget is computed by the mobile terminals thanks to 3D map information locally available. The level of channel protection is adaptively matched to the estimated radio link by tuning the transmission parameters and by configuring the Reed-Solomon protection code. Theoretical background and preliminary experimental results are presented in detail.