Energy Saving via Power-Aware Buffering in Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents a study on the impact of buffering schemes on wireless sensor power consumption. Two common buffering paradigms are studied: fixed-size buffering and fixed-interval buffering. We present theoretical analyses of the power consumption of the buffering schemes, in relation to parameters of the sensor node's wireless radio and memory modules, as well as the sensor data arrival rate. Our results indicate that, under the same circumstances, the optimal fixed-size buffering scheme outperforms the optimal fixed-interval scheme in terms of overall power conservation. We also show that a power-aware buffering scheme can save significant energy consumption over a power-oblivious buffering scheme, thus prolonging the useful lifespan of the sensor nodes.