An energy‐saving strategy based on sleep scheduling and block transmission for wireless multimedia sensor networks

Abstract

Purpose

Energy consumption is a fundamental concern in wireless multimedia sensor networks, even more than that in traditional wireless sensor networks. In fact, sensors are battery‐constrained devices, while multimedia applications, which require higher transmission rates and more extensive processing capacity, produce large quantities of data. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method which could save multimedia nodes' energy during their sleeping and transmitting phases and effectively bring down energy consumption.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the location and direction angle of nodes, areas of the overlapping sensing region between adjacent nodes could be calculated and a sleeping strategy is carried out to reduce energy consumption of inactive nodes. Moreover, an improved image comparison and block transmission methods by utilizing the sequence similar detection arithmetic theory is brought up as well to further save the node's energy.

Findings

With the help of the mobile nodes and by dividing the network into grids, sensing direction of multimedia node as well as the area of the overlapping sensing region could be obtained which provide a basis for the sleeping strategy. Furthermore, energy consumption on transmission is also reduced by only transmitting the unmatched blocks. Simulation results show that this method obtains satisfactory performance on prolonging the networks' lifetime.

Originality/value

This paper is of value in presenting an effective energy‐saving strategy for wireless multimedia sensor networks.

Citation

Sha, C., Wang, R., Huang, H. and Sun, L. (2010), "An energy‐saving strategy based on sleep scheduling and block transmission for wireless multimedia sensor networks", International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 248-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/17427371011066446