Energy-aware multi-hop transmission for sensor networks based on adaptive modulation

Wireless Sensor networks (WSN) have become a focus of research in the last few years. WSN is composed of small battery-powered devices that has sensors and wireless communication capabilities. Energy management is one of the key issues in WSNs because it directly impacts the network life-time. In order to overcome this restriction, several energy-efficient approaches for different layers have been investigated. In this paper, energy optimization on physical layer is analyzed. The node´s power consumption is optimized through scaling the modulation scheme used in node communications. Results show that an optimal modulation scheme can lead to the minimum power consumption over the whole wireless sensor network.