Channel Loss Based Energy Consumption Model for Low-Power Wireless Communications

Transmission power control can significantly improve energy-efficiency of wireless sensor network communications. Power consumption models are typically based on dependence of channel attenuation on distance. However, in practice, information on distance is usually not available and the dependence of channel attenuation on distance is not sufficiently accurate. Therefore, we propose more accurate power consumption model that uses information on total channel-loss, available on the most current low-power transceivers. We formulate the problems of selecting single-hop vs. multi-hop communication, and minimal energy route optimization, based on the proposed power consumption model.