Effect of transmission power control on the MAC layer of wireless sensor nodes

The need for long term operation of large scale Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has posed serious issues on energy efficiency due to the limited energy capacity of sensor nodes. Numerous schemes employed in literature have shown that the problem of effective energy management is as a result of inappropriate cluster sizes, energy consumed during data transmission by the nodes’ power amplifiers, and the energy consumed at the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer of nodes for data reception. The investigation of the effect of Transmission Power Control (TPC) on the MAC layer of a self-organized cluster of wireless sensor nodes using typical CC2420 transceiver parameters, IEEE 802.15.4 standard compliant, is presented in this study. The proposed approach offers a new and more efficient method of evaluating the effect of TPC in a self-organized clustering network at the MAC layer. The network’s lifetime simulation results using MATLAB R2013b, were compared when the unwanted signal received at the MAC layer of sensor nodes was considered and when not considered. The results obtained showed a 14.62% decrease in energy consumption of the network nodes, without considering the unwanted signal received at the MAC layer of the nodes.Keywords: Transmission power control, MAC layer, Wireless sensor nodes, Energy efficiency, Network lifetim