Optimal modulation scheme for energy efficient wireless sensor networks

As wireless sensor networks are constituted of nodes with limited life batteries, energy efficiency is a very important metric at all levels of system design. Therefore, performing optimal modulation schemes is a crucial task at the physical layer of this class of networks. This paper investigates the best modulation strategy to minimize the total energy consumption required to send a given number of bits. Energy consumption with digital modulation schemes including M-ary QAM (MQAM), M-ary PSK (MPSK), M-ary FSK (MFSK) and MSK are analytically analyzed and simulated over transmission time, modulation rate and transmission distance. A comparative analysis of energy consumption referring to MSK modulation is presented in this paper. We show that the gain achieved with MSK modulation is very promising to obtain optimal energy network consumption.