Wireless Sensor Network Radio Power Management and Simulation Models

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) create a new frontier in collecting and processing data from remote locations. The IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Personal Area Network-Low Rate (WPAN-LR) WSNs rely on hardware simplicity to make sensor field deployments both affordable and long-lasting without maintenance support. WSN designers strive to extend network lifetimes while meeting application-specific throughput and latency requirements. Effective power management places sensor nodes (or motes) into one of the available energy-saving modes based upon the sleep period duration and the current state of the radio. The newest generation of WPAN-LR-based sensor platform radios operates at a 250 kbps data rate and does not provide adequate time to completely power off the radio between the 128-byte constrained IEEE 802.15.4 transmissions.