Cooperative Relaying Strategies for Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper proposes power-optimized and bit-error-ratio (BER) minimized cooperative relaying strategies for multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Due to the limited power and hardware resource in sensor nodes, much attention has been paid to the minimization of energy consumption and low bit-error in designing WSN protocols. We identify the challenges in the design of cooperative relaying schemes for WSNs, which leaverage the capability to achieve lower BER and power-consumption. Results from the modeling and simulations show that our novel cooperative relaying strategies enable sensor stations to facilitate energy-efficient and robust cooperative communications.