Forward Error Correction for Routing Protocols in WSN: A Comparative Performance Analysis

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has been extensively investigated by the research community. The WSN serves to monitor and supervise an area through many wireless nodes. The issue with these networks is that they are highly energy-constrained since they are powered by a small battery that may not be rechargeable or renewable in some environments. Consequently, optimizing energy consumption and increasing lifetime is the most critical design factor for WSNs. In this regard, several routing protocols are proposed in the literature to conserve energy consumption and extend the network lifetime. However, these protocols cannot guarantee communication reliability. Therefore, both energy consumption and link reliability present the main challenge in WSN applications. Forward Error Correction (FEC) is a technique used to ensure link reliability. Due to the energy constraint of WSN, it is necessary to find suitable techniques that guarantee energy efficiency with reliability links. Furthermore, the choice of an adaptive FEC with routing protocols is very critical. The principal objective of this paper is to compare block FEC codes in terms of BER and decoding energy consumption to obtain the efficient FEC code for routing techniques in WSN. Simulation results show that the LDPC code with BPSK under the AWGN channel is the best for the LEACH routing protocol.