Wireless sensor networks: an energy-aware adaptive modulation scheme

Abstract

Digital modulation schemes have been thoroughly examined over the last decades in order to improve the performance over wireless channels in terms of capacity or BER vs SNR. Sensor networks belong to a special category of wireless networks where energy awareness may be more important than any other aspect such us bandwidth efficiency or Quality of Service. Hence, the criteria in order to choose the appropriate modulation scheme are quite different from any other application. In this paper we examine the available modulation schemes taking into account energy constraints, and based on an existing model, we propose an adaptive modulation scheme as a means to achieve better performance in terms of energy consumption.