Energy consumption optimization in real time applications for WSN using IR-UWB technology

Energy consumption optimization in Wireless sensor networks (WSN) applications is a major issue and constraint to which researchers are continuously faced to, due to the direct dependence of the network´s life time to it. Real time applications using WSN have some requirements to be accomplished; in this paper we targeted the factors influencing real time´s performance such as latency time and packets delivery ratio which were studied with different scenario. We present the status of WSN based on Zigbee and IR-UWB technologies, and the specificities of each one. A simulation of a sink based architecture network with various nodes´ number has been performed to prove the good impact when using IR-UWB technology to decrease the energy consumption and reduce the latency time. We used MiXiM platform under OMNet++ simulator to analyze and compare the performance of the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.4a standards with the considered factors.