Cross-Layer Designs for Energy-Efficient Sensor Networking

ARL A03-035, Phase I, Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR)

OBJECTIVE:  To develop cross-layer approaches to radio design for energy-efficient ad hoc sensor networking.

PHASE I:  Propose, and analyze, novel cross-layer design techniques leading to robust scalable architectures for sensor networks, operating under varying system loads.  Analyze the computation and implementation complexity of the joint design vs. traditional separate designs.  Conduct robustness analyses. Demonstrate feasibility via limited software simulations.

ABSTRACT: We propose a novel architecture for large-scale, low power sensor networks, referred to as Sensor Networks with Mobile Agents (SENMA) utilizing an Ultra Wide Band physical (PHY) layer. SENMA is designed to exploit node redundancies by introducing mobile agents that communicate opportunistically with a large field of sensors. The addition of mobile agents shifts computationally intensive tasks away from primitive sensors to more powerful mobile agents, which enables energy efficient operations under severely limited power constraints. Additionally, we select the Ultra Wide Band PHY layer to exploit mutual non-interfering operation and its natural by-product of range information. We further propose a cross-layer approach of PHY and MAC layers to provide power efficiency and operation effectiveness over SENMA architecture, referred to as an Opportunistic ALOHA. Finally, using randomly selected CDMA codes from a large table of orthogonal codes will further reduce the complexity associated with collision mitigation. A comparison and analysis of SENMA with a flat ad-hoc sensor network architecture will be comprehensively conducted regarding the energy efficiency.

View the Phase I Final Technical Report here.