Saroch's Assignment 14

Cross-layer design in wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor network is considered a fast-growing sensing technology as it is cheap, easy to implement and can be useful in many contexts. The sensor nodes can be deployed in the forest, for example, to sense the humidity, oxygen level or temperature. Each node equipped with two AA-sized batteries can function for months. However, in some applications, we need the sensor nodes to be deployed in an extended period and hence we need to save the battery as much as possible. While many have been proposed to save the energy consumed in wireless sensor network, one area that has not yet comprehensively explored is the cross-layer design.

In this PhD thesis, the cross-layer design aspect of wireless sensor network will be extensively investigated. The cross-layer stack is expected to enhance the throughput and, most importantly, the power consumption. If each layer can receive or pass parameters from and to another layer that is not adjacent to it, the power taken by hardware to perform these instructions will be less and hence the energy is preserved. There are however many issues in designing the cross-layer stack. The new protocol needs to be backward-compatible and interoperate with many other existing protocols. In one case, the cross-layer design can improve the performance significantly but in another case the cross-layer design can lead to negative consequences as a result of feedback loop. I hope to have a complete understanding of both the positive and negative effects when cross-layer design is enabled so that I can knowledgeably implement it or even let the system automatically choose parameters to maximize the system performance to the fullest possible.

Last modified 2 December 2007 at 4:38 am by panichsa