Optimization of multilevel power adjustment in wireless sensor networks

Restricted to the limited battery power of nodes, energy conservation becomes a critical design issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Transmission with excess power not only reduces the lifetime of sensor nodes, but also introduces immoderate interference in the shared radio channel. It is ideal to transmit packets with just enough power. In this paper, we propose a multilevel power adjustment (MLPA) mechanism for WSNs to prolong the individual node lifetime and the overall network lifetime. The energy conservation is achieved by reducing the average transmission power. The analytical model is built for the MLPA mechanism enabled with k distinct power levels (k-LPA). Under a free space loss (FSL) model, the closed-form expression of optimal power setting is derived and the average transmission power can be minimized as (k + 1)/2k of original fixed power.