On the use of high bit rate transceivers for low duty cycle wireless sensor networks

In most wireless sensor network applications reducing the energy consumption of each node has highest optimisation priority to allow sensor nodes to operate for an extended period of time. The radio transceiver plays an especially important role in this regard, because it typically consumes most of the nodes energy. Up to now only low bit rate radio transceivers (up to 115 kbps) were proposed for the use in sensor applications which leads to a sub optimal node efficiency. In This work the use of commercially available high bit rate (≥ 1 Mbps) transceivers for low duty cycle, ultra low power wireless sensor networks is proposed. Using state of the art high bit rate transceivers with an efficient MAC protocol such as the recently proposed CSMA-MPS can save considerable energy at the physical layer.