Energy efficient transmission techniques for wireless sensor networks

Power against rate performance of a class of transmission techniques is studied in this paper. This study arises in the context of a wireless sensor network in which multiple nodes equipped with single or multiple antennas cooperatively send simultaneous and distinct signals to multiple receiving nodes, each equipped with a single receiving antenna. The criterion in deriving the techniques is to eliminate or minimise the mutual interference so as to maximise received signal‐to‐interference plus noise ratio. It is shown for low bit rates that time‐shared transmission can achieve the performance of the optimal power shared technique operating in spatially uncoupled (ideal) channels. As the bit rate increases, time‐shared transmission becomes suboptimal. In this study, best linear optimisation, dirty paper coding and zero forcing are promising techniques.