LDPC coding for MIMO wireless sensor networks with clustering

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is used in various applications. Sensors acquire samples of physical data and send them to a central node in different topologies to process the data and makes decisions. A main performance factor for WSN is the battery life that depends on energy consumption on the sensor. To reduce the energy consumption, an energy efficient transmission technique is required. Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems showed good utilization of channel characteristics. This leads to enhance the transmission and hence reduce energy consumed by the sensor. In MIMO systems multiple signals are combined at the transmitter and transmitted using multiple antennas. This provides each receiver the whole combined signal and hence, array processing techniques helps in getting better performance. To further enhance the transmission of data, a Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) Coded MIMO wireless sensor network is proposed. The system implements space diversity through Multiple Antennas and temporal diversity through LDPC code and uses a clustering procedure to optimize the forming of the MIMO system. Results showed that, if the number of sensors is greater than the number of receiving antennas, time or frequency multiplexing is possible to keep good performance for the devised system. And by controlling the encoder we can create a temporal and spatial code among the transmitted signals enhancing the BER results in longer battery life at sensor nodes.