A Comprehensive Study of Power - E ffi cient Rendezvous Schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks

A Comprehensive Study of Power-Efficient Rendezvous Schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks by En-Yi Lin Doctor of Philosophy in Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California, Berkeley Professor Jan Rabaey, Chair Recently, advances in integrated circuit technology enabled the realization of wireless sensor networks. Wireless sensor nodes are characterized by their limited power resources. Given typical sensor network traffic loads, one of the most effective ways to minimize power consumption is to power off nodes as much as possible. With this approach, it is necessary to arrange simultaneous on-time for nodes to communicate, a method referred to as a rendezvous scheme. This research proposes and analyzes three major categories of rendezvous schemes, and compares their performances. The chosen performance evaluation metrics include both power efficiency and latency, which are the two most important factors in wireless sensor networks. The rendezvous schemes are compared against one another in different network scenarios, namely, different traffic loads, data packet sizes, network densities, channel fading conditions, and with different transceivers. The results identify different network environment as the most appropriate scenario for different categories of schemes to operate in. In short, this research incorporates the physical layer and upper layer influences on rendezvous schemes to provide a general guideline on which rendezvous scheme to select for different sensor network scenarios.