On multiantenna sensor networks with interference: Energy consumption vs. robustness

In this paper, we consider power-controlled wireless multiantenna sensor networks with interference and study the general trade-off between energy consumption and quality-of-service expressed in terms of the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR). First, we develop a model for the energy consumption of multiantenna nodes (i.e., energy consumption for transmission and hardware) and then study the trade-off between accuracy and energy costs for channel estimation by deriving a bound for the estimation error variance, since most multiantenna strategies require adequate channel knowledge. Then, we numerically compare different MIMO strategies with the energy consumption and the achievable SIR of a standard SISO system, to obtain insights into the strength of the discussed trade-off and to provide guidelines on the choice of strategies for different applications.