EERS: Energy efficient rate selection approach for wireless battery operated networks

For mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and sensor networks, due to the battery recovery effect, a node with longer idle period after finishing a transmission task will recover more over-consumed energy; however, longer recovery period requires shorter transmission period and hence higher transmission rate which leads to more energy consumption for transmission. Therefore, there is a tradeoff between the energy consumption for transmission and the energy recovery when minimizing the overall energy depletion at each node. This paper firstly defines a new metric termed actual energy depletion (AED), which quantifies the actual energy consumption during a transmission and recovery time unit of a node. We then describe the rate selection problem into an optimizing model to minimize AED subject to the channel's capacity constrain. We propose a novel energy efficient rate selection (EERS) approach for wireless battery operated networks. We analyze the mathematical procedure on how to obtain the required optimal rate for the proposed model and provide its implementation method in real networks in a distributive way. Numerical results are provided to show the efficiency of EERS in prolonging network lifetime.