A realistic communication model for distributed error-prone wireless sensor networks

With Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) involving in diverse applications, the realistic analysis of energy consumption of a sensor node in an error-prone network environment is emerging as an elementary research issue. In this paper, we introduce a Distributed Communication Model (DCM) that can accurately determine the energy consumption through data communication from source to destination in error-prone network environments. The energy consumption is affected with the quality of link, which is characterized by symmetry, directivity, instability, and irregularity of the communication range of a sensor node. Due to weak communication links, significant packet loss occurs that affects the overall energy consumption. While other models unable to determine energy consumption due to lossy links in error-prone and unstable network environments, DCM can accurately estimate the energy consumption in such situations. We also perform comprehensive analysis of overheads caused by data propagation through multi-hop distributed networks. We validate DCM through both simulations and experiments using MICAz motes. Similarity of the results from energy consumption analysis with both simulations and experimentations shows that DCM is realistic, compared to other models in terms of accuracy and diversity of the environments.