Tuning Protocols to Improve the Energy Efficiency of Sensornets

Energy efficiency is of critical importance in sensornets where the working life of wireless motes, and consequently the entire network, is limited by the finite energy capacity of batteries. Radio network activity typically dominates the energy consumption profile of motes running distributed applications, and hence represents the obvious target when attempting to use energy more frugally. Significant savings can be obtained by carefully tuning existing energy-ignorant protocols. Current practice in choosing parameters is generally based on experience, intuition, and trial and error. This approach rarely leads to the best choice. In this paper a novel method is presented through which the complex relationships between protocol parameters, network structure, application workload and observed network behaviour are understood and then tuned.