Advanced energy model and spectral efficiency optimization in short-range wireless sensor networks

Abstract

We consider a point-to-point wireless commu-nication with a multilevel quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM) and energy constraints. In this context, this paper addresses the problem of the spectral and energy efficiency trade-off for a realistic system model. Our researches focus on the power amplifier model, which depends on transmission power, drain efficiency and peak-to-average ratio (PAR). While they have been extensively studied in previous research, far too little attention has been paid to the influence of PAR and drain efficiency in the spectral and energy efficiency trade-off. This study provides new insights into the estimation of the system energy consumption and the choice of the optimal spec-tral efficiency while introducing a realistic system model based on a hardware-dependent power amplifier energy. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of PAR and drain efficiency parameters on this trade-off. Our study reveals that this hardware-dependent system model plays a significant role in energy saving, and that the induced reduction of spectral efficiency goes in the direction sought by embedded systems. Moreover, our research underlines the importance of considering the drain efficiency exponent as having a real impact on the energy consumption.