Optimal Transmit Power in Wireless Sensor Networks in a Multipath Rician Fading Channel

Arnab Nandi#1, Sumit Kundu*2

#

Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India
1

nandi_arnab@yahoo.co.in

Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, India Address Including Country Name
2

sumit.kundu@ece.nitdgp.ac.in

fading when K=0, and no fading when , where K is the Rician factor defined as the power ratio of specular to diffused components [7]. So, it is important to investigate optimal transmit power required to maintain the network connectivity in multipath Rician fading channel. Several approaches have been proposed in literature to prolong network lifetime. Panichpapiboon et al. evaluated Bit Error Rate (BER) performance and optimal power to preserve the network connectivity considering only path-loss and thermal noise [4]. In [5], Bettstetter derived the transmission range for which network is connected with high probability considering freespace radio link model. Tseng et al. studied the relationships between transmission range, service area and network Keywords Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs); Optimal connectivity in a free space model [6]. BER performance and optimal transmit power in WSN over Rayleigh fading channel Transmit Power; Rician Fading; Bit Error Rate (BER). has been derived in [8]. Narayanaswamy et al. proposed a I. INTRODUCTION protocol that extends battery life through providing low power Recent advances in wireless communication technologies routes in a medium with path loss exponent greater than 2 [9]. such as Bluetooth and ZigBee have led to great interest in A minimum uniform transmission power of an ad hoc wireless wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensor nodes are network to maintain network connectivity considering only constructed only by using sensor devices with wireless path loss has been proposed in [10]. In this paper, we investigate the optimal common transmit communication facilities [1]. Most of the works on performance of WSN assumes idealized radio propagation power in a multipath Rician fading channel where a strong models without considering impact of fading and shadowing Line Of Sight (LOS) signal component is present. We also effects at physical layer. However network performance may evaluate energy consumption for successful delivery of a file degrade due to presence of channel impairments such as in such fading scenario considering an infinite ARQ between shadowing and fading [2-3]. Energy conservation is one of the a pair of nodes. Here optimal transmit power is defined as the most important issues in WSN, where nodes are likely to rely minimum transmit power used by all nodes necessary to on limited battery power. Further connectivity of WSNs guarantee network connectivity maintaining a predefined mostly depends on the transmission power of the source nodes. maximum tolerable BER [4]. The optimal power in multipath If the transmission power is not sufficiently high there may be Rician fading channel also depends on routing and the single or multiple link failure. Further transmitting at high Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol used [11-12]. In the power reduces the battery life and introduces excessive inter present work we carry out simulation studies to derive the node interference. So an optimal transmit power is desired for optimal transmit power in multipath Rician fading channel for each node to preserve the network connectivity and prolong a network model employing square grid topology as in [4]. network lifetime. Previous research works in this field assume Optimal transmit power and energy consumption is evaluated free-space radio link model and Additive White Gaussian under several conditions of network such as node density, data Noise (AWGN) [4-6]. However wireless channels are often rate and different level of severity of Rician fading. The rest of the following paper organized as follows: In accurately modeled as exhibiting selective Rician fading where there is a strong signal component. Rician fading Section II, we describe the System Model. Section III shows captures a wide range of fading model. It represents Rayleigh
Abstract Energy Conservation is one of the most vital aspects in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for better network durability since nodes have limited resources. Excessive high transmit power consumes more energy and increases internode interference significantly. While, low transmit power may cause network failure. Thus choice of optimal transmit power is one of the prime concern in such network. Optimal transmit power is the minimum power required to sustain the network connectivity while maintaining a predefined maximum tolerable Bit Error Rate (BER). In this paper, the effects of Rician fading are investigated on optimal transmit power, BER performance and energy consumption. Further impact of severity of Rician fading on WSN performance is also studied.

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simulation results and discussions. Finally conclusions are drawn in Section IV. II. SYSTEM MODEL We consider a topology of network as presented in [4]. Fig. 1 shows a two tier sensor network using square grid topology. Distance between two nearest neighbor is dlink. It is assumed that N numbers of nodes are distributed over a region of area A obeying square grid topology. The node spatial density sq is defined as number of nodes per unit area i.e., sq =N/A. The

Assuming that each destination is equally likely, the average number of hops on a route can be written as [4]

n hop

N 2

(3)

The received signal at the receiver is the sum of three components (i) the intended signal from the transmitter, (ii) interfering signals from other active nodes and (iii) thermal noise. Since the interfering signals come from other nodes, we assume that total interfering signal can be treated as an additive noise process independent of thermal noise process. The received signal in the receiving node, Y during each bit period can be expressed as [4]

Y = hS rcv +

N 2 j =1

+ nthermal

(4)

where h is the channel coefficient with respect to the receiving antenna, Srcv is the desired signal in the receiving antenna considering only path loss, Sj is the interference from the other nodes and nthermal is the thermal noise signal. Assuming Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) modulation, there can be two cases for the amplitude of the Srcv
Fig. 1: Sensor nodes in square grid topology.

S rcv =

minimum distance between two consecutive neighbors is given by [4]

Prcv = Ebit for a +1 transmission Rbit Prcv = E bit for a 1 transmission Rbit
(5)

d link =

sq

(1)

Here we assume a simple routing strategy such that a packet is relayed hop-by-hop, through a sequence of nearest neighboring nodes, until it reaches the destination [11]. Further we consider a simple reservation based MAC protocol, called reserve and go (RESGO) following [12]. The major perturbations in wireless transmission are large scale fading and small scale fading [2-3]. Large scale fading represents the average signal power attenuation or path loss due to motion over large areas. This phenomenon is affected by prominent terrain contours (hills, forests, billboards, clumps of buildings, etc.) between the transmitter and receiver. However small-scale fading exhibits rapid changes in signal amplitude and phase as a result of small changes (as small as a half-wavelength) in the spatial separation between a receiver and transmitter. If the multiple reflective paths are large in number and there is a dominant non fading signal component, the envelope of the received signal is statistically described by a Rician pdf given as [2]

where Prcv is the power received at the receiving end, Rbit is the bit rate and E bit is the bit energy of the received signal considering only path loss [8]. Prcv is given by friis transmission formulae [2]

Prcv =

(4 )2 f c2 d link

Pt Gt G r c 2

(6)

where Pt is the transmit power, Gt is the transmitting antenna gain, Gr is the receiving antenna gain, fc is the carrier frequency, is the path-loss exponent and c is the velocity of light. Here we considered omni directional (Gt=Gr=1) antennas at the transmitter and receiver. The carrier frequency is in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. For each interfering node j, the amplitude of the interfering signal can be of three types with different probability [4, 8, 12]

Sj = =

Pint j Rbit Pint j Rbit

with probability

1 Ptrans 2 1 Ptrans 2 (7)

z2 + s2 p z (z ) = z 2 exp 2 2

) I

zs , z0 2

(2)

with probability

where z is the envelope amplitude of the received signal, 2 2 2 is the average power in the non LOS multipath components, s is the power in the LOS component and I0 is the modified th Bessel function of 0 order. In the present work we consider the multipath Rician fading in addition to path loss and thermal noise.

= 0 with probability (1 Ptrans )

where Ptrans is the transmission probability of interfering nodes and Pintj is the interference power received from node j. Size of the interference vector S j increases as the number of nodes

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increases in the network. The thermal noise signal can be written as [2, 4]
nthermal = FkT0 B

Average probability of error at packet level at each hop is expressed as [2]

PER
link

(8)

= 1 (1 BER

link

L pkt

(15)

where F is the noise figure, k = 1.38 10 23 J / K is the Boltzmanns constant, T0 is the room temperature and B is the transmission bandwidth. Assuming that a bit detected erroneously at the end of a link is not corrected in successive links, the BER at the end of a multi-hop route with n hop number of hops is denoted as

The effect of fading is incorporated in BER. The probability of n retransmissions is the product of failure in the (n-1) transmissions and the probability of success at the nth transmission:
n1 PI [n] = (1 PER link )(PER link )

(16)

BERroute. So, the BERroute can be expressed as,

BERroute = 1 (BERlink 1)nhop

Average number of retransmissions, assuming an infinite ARQ is given as

RI =

(9)

Where, BERlink is the link BER. Next we derive the energy spent in successfully transmitting a data packet considering infinite ARQ between a pair of transmitting and receiving nodes. It is assumed that each packet consists of header, message and trailer as shown in Fig. 2. So, transmitted packet length can be expressed as [13],

P [ n ].n = (1 PER
I n =1

PER link
link

(17)

We consider only path loss in reverse link. Further we assume that ACK/NACK from receiving node is instantaneous and error free. Considering receiver sensitivity Si, the required transmit power for reverse link is given by [2]
PtI =
2 S i (4f )2 d link

L pkt = l h + l m + l t

(10)

Gt G r c 2

(18)

The energy consumed per packet at the end of n hop number of hops is considered as the energy spent in forward transmission of information and reverse transmission for NACK/ACK as in [15]
Fig. 2. Simple structure of a packet

Where lh, lm and lt are the header length, message length and trailer length respectively. So, the energy required to transmit a single packet is
Et = Pt L pkt Rbit

EI =

1.75 (1 + R I ) n hop
Rbit

[Pt (l h + l m ) + PtI l ack ]

(19)

(11)

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 1 shows the important network parameters used in the simulation study
TABLE 1 Network Parameters used in the Simulation Parameter Path loss exponent () Number of nodes in the network (N) Node spatial Density (sq) Packet arrival rate at each node (t) Career frequency (fc) Noise figure (F) Room Temperature (T0) Transmission Power (PTx) Rician Factor (K) Values 2 289 10-9 10-1 0.5 pck/s 2.4 GHz 6dB 300k 10 mW, 100 mW 0, 3 and 10

Here it is assumed that 75% of the transmit energy is required to receive a packet [14]. So, energy required to communicate, i.e. transmit and receive a single packet is given by
E packet = Pt ( L pkt + l ack ) Rbit 1.75 + E d

(12)

where Ed is the decoding energy to decode a single packet and lack is the acknowledge frame length. Since Forward Error Correction (FEC) technique is not used here, decoding energy and trailer length both are assumed zero [15]. Thus the energy to communicate a single packet is:
E packet = Pt (l h + l m + l ack ) 1.75 Rbit

(13)

The minimum energy required to communicate a packet is the energy required to transmit and receive the message bits (lm) only. Thus minimum energy is given by the following expression: Pl E min = t m 1.75 (14) Rbit

Fig. 3 shows route BER as a function of node spatial density. It is observed that BERroute performance improves with the increase in node spatial density. However it is seen that beyond a certain node density the BERroute does not change with further increase in node spatial density and a floor in BERroute, as denoted by BERfloor appears. The desired signal power as well as the inter-node interference increases with increase in node density. As a result we obtain the BERfloor. This is expected because, increasing node spatial density beyond a certain limit no longer improves the signal to noise

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ratio (SNR), as the interfering nodes also become close enough to the receiver. It is seen that BERroute performance degrades in multipath fading channel. This is because in multipath fading environment signal to noise interference ratio (SNIR) degrades. For a data rate of 10 Mbps and node spatial density of 1.7 10 3 , BERroute is 3.9 10 4 considering only path

with the increase in severity of fading. For example, critical bit rate is 2 Mbps for Rician factor of K=10, while it increases to 4 Mbps for K=3.

Fig. 4: Optimal transmit power as a function of bit rate; BERth=10-2,

sq

=10-6.

Fig. 3: Route BER vs node spatial density; Pt =10 mW.

loss while it increases to 1.7 10 3 in Rician fading channel of K = 3. It is also observed that with increase in severity of fading, i.e., as K factor decreases from 10 to 3, BERroute performance degrades. It is also seen that BERroute performance degrades as bit rate decreases. This is due to increase in vulnerable interval with decrease in bit rate [12]. As a result, transmission probability of the interfering nodes increases. In Fig. 4, we compare the optimal common transmit power as a function of bit rate in multipath Rician fading channel. Optimal common transmit power is the minimum power sufficient to preserve network connectivity while satisfying a predefined BER threshold (BERth) value at the end of a multihop route. Here variation of optimal transmit power with bit rate is shown for different severity of multipath fading. It is seen that optimal transmit power increases as the data rate increases. It is mainly because of the high thermal noise introduced due to high bit rate. It is observed that optimal transmit power required to transmit data in multipath Rician fading channel is higher than the power required in absence of fading for same data rate. For example at a bit rate of 4 Mbps -2 and BERth =10 , the optimal transmit power is 4.6 mW without fading. However for the same BERth and data rate the optimal transmit power is increased to 68.1 mW in presence of Rician fading with K=3. Further optimal transmit power increases with increase in severity of multipath Rician fading channel. As severity of fading increases, in order to maintain connectivity with same level of BERth, transmit power also needs to be increased so as to compensate the higher level of fading. It is seen that there is a critical data rate, below which the desired BERth cannot be satisfied for any level of transmit power. The critical bit rate occurs at the point where the BERfloor for that particular data rate becomes higher than the desired BERth. Further it is seen that critical bit rate increases

Fig. 5 shows the optimal common transmit power as a function of bit rate for different node spatial density and BER threshold value in a multipath Rician fading channel. It is seen that optimal transmit power increases with decrease in node spatial density for a given bit rate ( i, iii ). This is because with decrease in node spatial density at a fixed bit rate, BERroute performance degrades. For example, at a bit rate of 6 Mbps -2 and BERth=10 , optimal transmit power is 10 mW for a node -6 spatial density of 10 . However it increases to 100 mW as -7 node spatial density decreases to 10 . Further optimal transmit power required to maintain desired BER threshold increases with decrease in BER threshold value ( ii, iii ).

Fig 5: Optimal Transmit Power as a function of Bit Rate for different Node Spatial Density; K=10.

Fig. 6 shows the energy required to successfully deliver a file of size 106 bit using packet of fixed size 400 bit with an infinite ARQ technique. Energy consumption in multipath

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Rician fading is compared with that of path loss and Rayleigh fading case. It is seen that in presence of Rician fading energy requirement increases (iii, iv). Further energy spent in successful delivery of a file increases with increase in severity of multipath Rician fading (ii, iii). This is because with increase in severity of shadowing the SNR degrades. This results in more number of retransmissions for successful delivery of a packet. Thus the energy spent to transfer data increases.

performance degrades with decrease in bit rate. Energy required to successfully deliver a data packet increases with increase in severity of Rician fading. The above study helps in choice of optimal transmit power in presence of Rician fading.

REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] I. F. Akyidiz, Weilian Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, E. Cayirci, "A survey on sensor networks", IEEE Communication Magazine, Vol 40, Issue 8, pp 102114, 2002. Andrea Goldsmith, Wireless Communications, Cambridge University Press, 2005. Sklar, Rayleigh Fading Channels in Mobile Digital Communication Systems Part I: Characterization, IEEE Communication Magazine, pp. 90-100, July 2003. Sooksan Panichpapiboon, Gianluigi Ferrari,and Ozan K. Tonguz, Optimal Transmit Power in Wireless Sensor Networks IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computing, Vol. 5, No. 10, October 2006, pp. 1432-1447. C. Bettstetter and J. Zangl, How to Achieve a Connected Ad Hoc Network with Homogeneous Range Assignment: An Analytical Study with Consideration of Border Effects, Proc. IEEE Intl Workshop Mobile and Wireless Comm. Network, pp. 125-129, Sept. 2002. C. C. Tseng and K. C. Chen, Power Efficient Topology Control in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Proc. IEEE Wireless Comm. and Networking Conf. (WCNC), vol. 1, pp. 610-615, Mar. 2004. F. Davarian, "Fade margin calculation for channels impaired by Rician fading", IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Vol-34, Issue-1, pp 41-44, 1985. A. Nandi and S. Kundu, "Evaluation of Optimal Transmit Power in Wireless Sensor Networks in Presence of Rayleigh Fading," ICTACT Journal on Communication Technology (IJCT), Vol 1, Issue 2, pp. 107112, 2010. S. Narayanaswamy, V. Kawadia, R.S. Sreenivas, and P.R. Kumar, Power Control in Ad-Hoc Networks: Theory, Architecture, Algorithm and Implementation of the COMPOW Protocol, Proc. European Wireless 2002 Next Generation Wireless Networks: Technologies, Protocols, Services, and Applications, pp. 156-162, Feb. 2002. Q. Dai and J. Wu, Computation of Minimal Uniform Transmission Power in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Proc. IEEE Intl Conf. Distributed Computing Systems Workshops (ICDCS), pp. 680-684, May 2003. C. E. Perkins, Ad Hoc Networking, Addison-Wesley, 2001. G. Ferrari and O.K. Tonguz, Performance of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks with Aloha and PR-CSMA MAC Protocols, Proc. IEEE Global Telecomm. Conf. (GLOBECOM), pp. 2824-2829, Dec 2003. I. F. Akyildiz. and I. Joe. "A New ARQ Protocol for Wireless ATM Networks" Proc. of IEEE ICC'98, Vol.2, pp. 1109-1113, 1998. Kleinschmidt J.H., Borelli, W.C. and Pellenz, M.E, "An Analytical Model for Energy Efficiency of Error Control Schemes in Sensor Networks", ICC '07. IEEE International Conference on Communications 2007, pp. 3895 - 3900, 24-28 June 2007. Sankarasubramaniam Y., Akyildiz I.F. and Mclaughlin S.W., "Energy efficiency based packet size optimization in wireless sensor networks", Proceedings of the First IEEE International Workshop on Sensor Network Protocols and Applications 2003, pp 1-8, 2003.

[5]

[6] [7] [8]

Fig. 6. Energy consumption to transfer a file (size of 106 bit) using fixed packet of size 400 bit in different level of severity of Rician fading. Rbit=10 Mbps , Pt=10 mW.

[9]

IV. CONCLUSION In present work optimal common transmit power in multipath Rician fading channel for WSN is evaluated. Energy consumption for successful delivery of a file is also evaluated in such scenario. It is observed that optimal transmit power required to maintain network connectivity satisfying a given maximum acceptable BER threshold value in multipath Rician fading channel is more as compared to that in absence of fading. It is also seen that optimal transmit power increases with increase in severity of multipath Rician fading. Further optimal transmit power decreases with the increase in node spatial density. Critical bit rate increases with increase in severity of Rician fading and decreases with increase in node spatial density. The route BER performance degrades with increase in severity of Rician fading. Further route BER

[10]

[11] [12] [13] [14]

[15]

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