Transceiver energy consumption models for the design of low power wireless sensor networks

It is generally desired to have a wireless sensor network (WSN) that will run on little power (if possible, none at all) thereby saving cost, and the inconveniences of having to replace batteries in some difficult to access areas of usage. Despite several researches on WSN energy consumption, there is no clear transceiver energy consumption model to use when designing very low power WSN. By studying the energy consumption map of the transceiver of a WSN node in different states and within state transitions, we propose in this paper the energy consumption model of the transceiver unit of a typical sensor node. The contribution of this paper is an innovative energy consumption model based on finite automata which reveals the relationship between the aggregate energy consumption and power characteristics of the transceiver components.