Energy Level Performance of Error Control Schemes in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper evaluates energy level performance of error control strategies in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). More precisely Forward Error Correcting (FEC) and Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) technique are studied for a square grid WSN. ARQ scheme is compared with FEC scheme in terms of Packet Error Rate (PER), energy efficiency and total energy spent to communicate packetized data. The impact of node spatial density and packet lengths on energy efficiency and energy expenditure is discussed. Further an optimum FEC scheme with the maximal energy efficiency for a given node spatial density and packet size is evaluated. The impact of node spatial density and packet length on optimal error correcting capability is indicated. Energy efficiency for several error correcting capabilities and packet length is also evaluated.