Energy-efficient low power listening for wireless sensor networks in noisy environments

Abstract

Low Power Listening (LPL) is a common MAC-layer technique for reducing energy consumption in wireless sensor networks, where nodes periodically wakeup to sample the wireless channel to detect activity. However, LPL is highly susceptible to false wakeups caused by environmental noise being detected as activity on the channel, causing nodes to spuriously wakeup in order to receive nonexistent transmissions. In empirical studies in residential environments, we observe that the false wakeup problem can significantly increase a node's duty cycle, compromising the benefit of LPL. We also find that the energy-level threshold used by the Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) mechanism to detect channel activity has a significant impact on the false wakeup rate. We then design AEDP, an adaptive energy detection protocol for LPL, which dynamically adjusts a node's CCA threshold to improve network reliability and duty cycle based on application-specified bounds. Empirical experiments in both controlled tests and real-world environments showed AEDP can effectively mitigate the impact of noise on radio duty cycles, while maintaining satisfactory link reliability.