Link quality modeling for energy harvesting wireless sensor networks

Abstract

In energy harvesting wireless sensor networks (EH-WSNs) sensor nodes are capable of harvesting energy from environmental sources. Usually, knowledge about the link quality improves the performance of WSNs. During data routing, selection of good quality links are important to maintain stable communication. Thus helps to reduce the unnecessary energy wastage. Obtaining the link state information is more challenging for EH-WSN as different nodes has different energy profiles and state of the node depends on several environmental conditions. In this paper, we have studied different factors affecting the link quality and model it using finite state Markov Model. Energy availability of the harvesting devices through real time traces is considered for modeling the network. This model can significantly provide relevant information which is very effective to improve the routing decisions as the next hop decision will be more accurate. The usefulness and validity of the proposed approach is illustrated through simulations for specific examples.