Transmission Power Control in MAC Protocols for Wireless
Sensor Networks
∗
Luiz H. A. Correia Daniel F. Macedo
lcorreia@dcc.ufmg.br damacedo@dcc.ufmg.br
†
Aldri L. dos Santos Antonio A. F. Loureiro
aldri@dcc.ufmg.br loureiro@dcc.ufmg.br
Computer Science Department
Federal University of Minas Gerais
Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627
Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
ABSTRACT
Medium access control (MAC) protocols manage energy con-
sumption on the network element during communication,
which is the most energy-consuming event on Wireless Sen-
sor Networks (WSNs). One method to mitigate energy con-
sumption is to adjust transmission power. This paper pre-
sents two approaches to adjust transmission power in WSNs.
The first approach employs dynamic adjustments by ex-
change of information among nodes, and the second one
calculates the ideal transmission power according to sig-
nal attenuation in the link. The proposed algorithms were
implemented and evaluated with experiments, comparing
their results with B-MAC, the standard MAC protocol in
the Mica Motes 2 platform. Results show that transmission
power control is an effective method to decrease energy con-
sumption, and incurs in a negligible loss in packet delivery
rates. For node distances of 5m, the proposed transmission
power control techniques decrease energy consumption by
27% over B-MAC.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
C.2.1 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Network
Architecture and Design—Wireless communication
General Terms
Algorithms, Performance, Experimentation
∗Also affiliated to Federal University of Lavras, Brazil.
†Also affiliated to Federal University of Ceará, Brazil.
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MSWiM’05, October 10–13, 2005, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Copyright 2005 ACM 1-59593-188-0/05/0010 ...$5.00.
282
Daniel A. C. Silva
daniacs@dcc.ufmg.br
José Marcos S. Nogueira
jmarcos@dcc.ufmg.br
Keywords
Transmission power control, wireless sensor networks, me-
dium access control
1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a subclass of tra-
ditional mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), and consist of
a large number of sensor nodes, composed of processor, me-
mory, battery, sensor devices and transceiver. These nodes
send monitoring data to an access point (AP), which is res-
ponsible for forwarding data to the users [7]. Unlike tradi-
tional ad hoc networks, in general, it is not possible to re-
place or recharge node batteries due to the number of nodes
deployed or inhospitable environmental conditions. Hence,
energy conservation is a critical factor in WSNs.
Severe hardware and energy constraints preclude the use
of protocols developed for MANETs, which comparatively
possess more resources. The strict requirements force net-
working protocols to be as much energy-efficient as possi-
ble. Medium access control (MAC) protocols, for example,
modify transceiver parameters or even the topology of the
network in order to reduce the energy consumption. One of
those parameters is the transmission power that, besides re-
ducing energy consumption, also provides higher throughput
due to the reduced number of collisions and the establish-
ment of links with lower bit error rates [5, 8, 9, 15].
Although an effective mechanism to reduce energy con-
sumption, transmission power control is not implemented
in any existing MAC protocol for WSNs. This occurs due
to the highly imprecise nature of readings provided by the
transceiver, and also due to the restricted resources found in
current nodes. Those factors difficult an accurate calcula-
tion of the ideal transmission power. To our knowledge, this
is the first paper that performs experiments on transmission
power control. Current works are limited to simulations,
which assume that readings are precise, and the transmis-
sion range can be assigned to any arbitrary value, which is
not the case on real hardware. Our paper considers all those
limitations, since it is based in experiments with production
hardware used by a number of researchers [17, 20, 21, 22].
 In this paper we propose transmission power control pro-
tocols for WSNs, which can be employed in any existing
MAC protocol. Experiments in the Mica Motes 2 platform
show the efficiency of the protocols proposed for power con-
trol, considering parameters such as energy and throughput.
The protocols proposed are simple and effective, thus they
could be easily adapted to more resourceful networks, such
as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs).
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents
the main sources of energy consumption in communication.
Section 3 presents the related works. The methods proposed
for transmission power control are described in Section 4.
Section 5 describes the evaluated scenarios and presents the
results. Finally, Section 6 draws the conclusions and future
work.
2. ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN COMMU-
NICATION
Among the hardware components in a sensor node, the
transceiver [7] is the highest energy consumer. In particular,
the energy consumed by the transceiver is related to events
in the communication and network organization.
Communication events. Encompasses events such as
overhearing (nodes listen to transmissions even if they are
not the destination of the packet), idle listening (nodes listen
to the medium awaiting transmissions) collision and trans-
mission synchronization. Overhearing and idle listening are
mitigated by turning the radio periodically off (called duty
cycles), or when incoming transmissions are not driven to
the node. Collisions and transmission synchronization are
avoided with the use of backoff techniques, medium reserva-
tion and the exchange of messages [3].
Network organization. Is related to the network to-
pology and the communication pattern (single-hop or multi-
hop). The topology can be modified by altering the trans-
mission power. With shorter communication ranges, the
probability of hidden terminals [1, 15] and the number of
collisions [19] is smaller, reducing energy consumption. Net-
work organization can also be changed by topology control
protocols, which turn off nodes producing redundant or un-
necessary data to the application [14]. Thus, as transmis-
sion power control protocols are complementary to topology
control protocols, networks striving energy-efficiency should
employ topology control protocols to lessen the amount of
transmitted data, at the same time transmitting the re-
maining information at the lowest transmission power neces-
sary to provide an efficient communication among the active
nodes.
Existing MAC protocols employ energy-saving techniques
which operate only over communication events, ignoring net-
work topology. Transmission power control techniques, how-
ever, can be very effective, as shown in figure 1. In this
example, if nodes B and D, at the same time, transmit data
at the typical transmission power (dashed lines) to nodes
A and C, respectively, a collision will occur at node C. If
the transmission power is reduced to the minimum neces-
sary to reach the destination of the packet (solid lines), no
collisions occur. Besides decreasing the number of collisions,
transmission power control has other benefits, detailed be-
low.
283
Collision
A B C D
Transmission using power control
Transmission without power control
Figure 1: Adjusting transmission power to avoid col-
lisions.
Benefits of Transmission Power Control
Transmission power control allows several improvements in
the operation of WSNs, such as the establishment of links
with higher reliability, communication with the minimum
energy cost, and better reuse of the medium.
Links with higher reliability. When used in conjunc-
tion with link reliability assessment algorithms, power con-
trol techniques can be used to improve the reliability of a
link. Upon detecting that link reliability is below a certain
threshold, the MAC protocol increases the transmission po-
wer, lowering the probability of receiving corrupted data.
Communication at minimum energy cost. When
communicating at a fixed transmission power, nodes waste
energy since some links already have a high probability of
a successful delivery. Hence, the transmission control algo-
rithm could decrease the transmission power to a level where
link reliability is still high, but energy consumption is lower.
Better reuse of the medium. When nodes communi-
cate at the exact power needed to ensure a successful com-
munication, signal range is nothing broader than it was sup-
posed to. Thus, only nodes which really must share the
same space will contend to access the medium, decreasing
the amount of collisions in the network. This reduced num-
ber of collisions will also enhance network utilization and
lower latency times.
3. RELATED WORK
Several studies characterized channel propagation in wire-
less networks. Lal et al. [10] showed that it is possible to
identify link reliability using an energy-efficient algorithm.
Reijers et al. [18] studied the effect of obstacles and environ-
mental changes on link quality. Also, results showed that
propagation is asymmetric and directional. RSSI (Received
Signal Strength Indicator) readings were found to be ex-
tremely dependent on environmental conditions, thus should
be used with caution. Given the irregularity of signal propa-
gation in wireless transmissions, Zhou et al. [23] developed a
new propagation model, which closely resembles the results
obtained from experimental data.
Gomez and Campbell analyzed the benefits of transmis-
sion power control in wireless multi-hop networks [5]. The
authors showed that per-link range adjustments outperform
global range transmission adjustments by 50%. Thus, ins-
tead of globally defining a transmission range that keeps the
network connected, wireless networks should adjust trans-
mission ranges on each link. Gomez and Campbell also
demonstrated that the average traffic capacity per node is
constant even if more nodes are added to a fixed area net-
work, if this network employs transmission power control.
This is not true, however, if the transmission range if kept
fixed. For such networks, the capacity decreases when more
nodes are added, since more nodes will interfere with each
other.
Transmission power control is an active line of study in
MANETs. Several MAC protocols employing this technique
have been proposed. PCMA (Power Controlled Multiple Ac-
cess) is a MAC protocol which provides communication at
minimum propagation ranges, allowing spatial reuse [15].
Agarwal et al. proposed a distributed power control algo-
rithm for MANETs [1]. Pires et al. improved this algorithm
by adding a table in each node, which stores the transmis-
sion power used on previous transmissions [16]. In order
to mitigate asymmetric links caused by transmission power
variation, Jung & Vaidya proposed that transmission power
should be adjusted for every transmitted byte [8].
The transmission power control techniques developed for
MANETs do not apply to WSNs. Since the calculation
performed is complex and imprecise in the transceivers em-
ployed in WSNs, current MAC protocols for WSNs do not
implement transmission power control [11, 17, 22]. Our im-
plementation of transmission power control improves net-
work operation by minimizing contention and decreasing the
amount of energy required for communication. Our solution
employs a transmission power calculation adapted to the
restrictions found in WSNs. Also, we use tables to store the
minimum transmission power, as in current solutions.
4. ASSESSING THE IDEAL TRANSMISSION
POWER
In order to identify the ideal transmission power, nodes
must perform calculations based on several readings from
the transceiver and the battery. Those are:
• RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator): is the sig-
nal strength measured by the transceiver at its input
interface. RSSI measurements are used to calculate
the signal strength when receiving incoming data and
the noise at the medium. Prec,Ptrans
• Sensitivity: is the least energetic power level at which
the transceiver is able to detect and decode data cor-
rectly. If any transmission is received at a power level
below this limit, data will be garbled.
• Battery voltage: RSSI values read from the radio are
calculated with battery voltage as a reference. Thus, in
order to convert any RSSI reading to the actual recep-
tion power, the voltage at the moment of the reception
must be known. Pthres
In a successful transmission, the received signal strength
is superior to the average noise at the receiver (the sig-
nal strength sampled when there are no ongoing transmis-
sions on the medium). Communication quality also de-
pends on factors such as distance among the receiver and
the transmitter and the existence of sources of reflection,
refraction and dispersion. Figure 2 presents the received
signal strength for transmissions at 5 dBm, when varying
the distance among the transmitter and the receiver, in the
284
−60
Experimental data
−65 Nominal strength
Average noise
Signal strength (dBm)
−70
−75
−80
−85
−90
−95
−100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Distance (m)
Figure 2: Received signal strength when varying the
distance among nodes.
Mica Motes 2 platform [6]. The “Nominal strength” curve
shows the expected behavior of the signal, while the “Ex-
perimental data” curve shows empirical data. We infer from
those curves that reception strength is inversely proportional
to the distance between the transmitter and receiver. The
average noise, however, suffered no significant changes.
Signal propagation occurs differently for indoor and out-
door environments, thus propagation models are specific to
each type of environment [4, 12]. Although such models can
be used to provide a fair approximation of the ideal trans-
mission power needed to reach a node, those models are too
costly to be executed in a sensor node. Thus, new algo-
rithms, suitable to the scarce resources in WSNs, must be
developed. Two methods are described below.
4.1 Assessing the Ideal Transmission Power
Through Node Interaction
The ideal transmission power can be dynamically deter-
mined by the interaction of nodes. Transceivers transmit
data at only a few power levels. The transceiver used in
the Mica Motes 2 platform, for example, provides 22 differ-
ent levels, separated at roughly 1 dBm [2]. The switching
between different power levels takes 20 µs. Since the num-
ber of possibilities is quite small, it is possible to iterate
over the available power levels, increasing or decreasing the
transmission power when necessary.
The proposed algorithm calculates the ideal transmission
power by repeated refinements, and operates in two phases.
Figure 3 shows the operation of the algorithm. In the first
phase, the ideal transmission power is determined, while
in the second phase the transmission power is dynamically
adapted to any environmental change. Initially, the ideal
transmission power is set to the maximum value allowed by
the transceiver. Nodes wishing to determine the ideal trans-
mission power send a power query message (MP Q ) piggy-
backed in data packets at the “current” ideal transmission
power, and await for a confirmation of reception, such as
an acknowledgement (ACK) packet. If the reception is con-
firmed, the transmitter decreases the ideal transmission po-
wer by one level, and sends another MP Q message. When
the reception of a MP Q message is not confirmed, the trans-
mitter assumes that the ideal transmission power was found,
and the second phase of operation starts.
In the second phase of the algorithm, nodes use ACKs
to determine if the ideal transmission power should be in-
 First phase of
the algorithm
Second phase
of the algorithm
• The received signal must be higher than the noise sam-
pled at the receiver (the base noise, or NB ) by a certain
P TX =
Standard P
threshold (SIN Rthreshold ), as described in equation
TX Send data
messages at No 4. This is needed to correctly differentiate data from
P TX
noise.
Pthres = SIN Rthreshold × NB
Send M PQ at Prec = PT Xmin ≥ (4)
P TX No GA→B
L D consective LI consective
No
This method works as follows. Nodes periodically sample
msgs msgs not
ACK’d? ACK’d?
M PQ ACK’d?
Yes Yes
the signal strength when no transmissions occur, in order to
Yes Decrease P TX Increase P TX
determine the base noise (NB ). If node A wishes to com-
Decrease P TX
one power
level
one power
level
municate with node B, it transmits a packet to B at the
one power
level
standard transmission power (PT X ). When B receives the
packet from A, it determines the received signal strength
(PRX , or reception power) and calculates the ideal trans-
Figure 3: Operation of the interactive algorithm. mission power (PT Xideal ) from A to B using equation 5.
This calculation outputs the transmission value that satis-
fies equations 3 and 4. Next, B sends the calculated power
creased or decreased. If a number of consecutive transmis- to A, which will transmit subsequent messages to B at this
sions are not confirmed with ACKs (this number is called power level. In order to dynamically adjust the ideal power
the increase threshold level, or LI ), the ideal transmission transmission, node A always sends in its packets to B at
power is increased one level. Since the noise can also de- the current transmission power. B, in turn, recalculates the
crease due to environmental changes, communication can ideal transmission power, and sends this value to A piggy-
also improve, thus the transmission power is lowered if a backed in the ACK messages.
certain number of consecutive messages are successfully re- Neural Network instead of constant
ceived (this number is called the decrease threshold level, or ţ
packet exchange
ű
LD ). The values of LI and LD must be adjusted according RXthreshold SIN Rthreshold × NB
PT Xideal = max , (5)
to the typical throughput of the application, avoiding that GA→B GA→B
the algorithm reacts too late to variations in link reliabil-
ity when the throughput is low, or that such changes are The ideal transmission power is directional, that is, it de-
too frequent when the throughput is high. The algorithm pends on the direction of the communication. However, the
treats node failures and transmission failures as being the attenuation from A to B (GA→B , or gain) is considered to
same, since the use of ACKs to assess link reliability does be symmetric in our calculations. The transmission power
not allow a distinction of such events. Broadcast packets must ensure that the signal is received in B without er-
are always transmitted at a fixed power, since those packets rors. For this purpose, some values must be determined
are not acknowledged. empirically, such as radio sensitivity (RXthreshold ) and the
SIN Rthreshold , since they vary for each transceiver.
4.2 Assessing the Ideal Transmission Power Sensor nodes provide integer values as output for RSSI
Through Signal Attenuation readings, which must be converted to values in dBm. Since
The ideal transmission power can also be calculated as a current sensor nodes do not perform floating point arith-
function of signal attenuation, and must satisfy the following metics, the calculation must be made with integers, compro-
conditions [15]1 : mising its precision. Besides, readings from the transceiver
and battery vary over time, thus the calculation must be
• The transmission power must lie within the boundaries adjusted to avoid subtle variations. The challenge of calcu-
imposed by the transceiver (equation 1): lating the transmission power through attenuation resides
in defining a precise, stable and efficient algorithm, which
PT Xlower ≤ PT Xmin ≤ PT Xupper (1)
can be implemented with the operations provided by the
micro-controller.
• The transmission power must compensate the attenua-
tion imposed by the propagation of the signal from the 4.3 Storing the Ideal Transmission Power
sender (node A) to the receiver (node B), guaranteeing To communicate at the ideal transmission power without
that the received signal power is higher than the min- requiring a calculation before every packet transmission, the
imum desired sensitivity of the radio (RXthreshold ). protocol stores the current ideal transmission for each neigh-
This attenuation is asymmetric, and is inferred by the bor node [16]. Thus, nodes first query their tables in order
transmitted and the received power (equation 2): to detect if the ideal transmission power was already cal-
culated. If it was, then data will be sent at this power. If
PRX it was not, the power transmission calculation is executed,
GA→B = (2)
PT X and the result is stored on the table for future use. Table
Thus, the ideal transmission power must satisfy equa- 1 shows the fields stored in the table. Each node stores the
tion 3: ideal transmission power, coded as the bit configuration that
RXthreshold must be fed into the radio in order to transmit at the ideal
PT Xmin ≥ (3)
GA→B power (P otT x). A control variable (N oReduce) indicates
if the ideal power has been calculated, while the Addr field
1
The relations are expressed in mW for clarity. stores the MAC address of the neighbor.

285
 the needs of the application. We conducted empirical mea-
Table 1: Fields stored and their memory consump- surements to determine some parameters used in B-MAC-
tion in the Mica Motes 2 platform. PC. Those measurements are briefly described below.
Field Size Description
P otT x 1 byte Ideal Tx. power
Interactive method (B-MAC-PCI). The ideal values
N oReduce 1 byte Ideal Tx. power already calculated? for LI (number of ACKs lost to increase the transmission
Addr 2 bytes MAC address of the neighbor power) and LD (number of ACKs received to decrease the
transmission power) were adjusted to minimize packet losses,
as shown in figure 4. When increasing LD , less packets
Since the noise is dynamic, and nodes may move or leave are lost, but the method responds slowly to environmental
the network, entries on the table are invalidated if no trans- changes. For LI , the behavior is the opposite. LI should
missions occur after some time. This avoids that nodes be set to a small value, since it responds rapidly to varia-
transmit data at the wrong power after extended periods tions in the noise. Figures 5 and 6 show the behavior of
of silence. the transmission power when varying LD and LI , respec-
tively. Figure 5 shows that higher values of LD keep the
5. EVALUATION transmission power more stable, while smaller values of LI
increase energy consumption, since the transmission power
To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed transmission
is more easily and frequently increased, as shown in Figure
power control techniques, we conducted experiments in the
6. For small values of LI , errors in bursts might significantly
Mica Motes 2 platform, modifying its standard MAC proto-
increase the transmission power.
col, called B-MAC, to transmit packets at the ideal trans-
mission power. The version employing the iterative method
is called B-MAC-PCI, while the version employing the atte- 70%
LI = 1
nuation method is called B-MAC-PCA. 60% LI = 2
LI = 3
50% LI = 4
5.1 B-MAC Protocol

Packets lost (%)

The B-MAC protocol was tailored to event-driven appli- 40%
cations [17], and aims to be energy-efficient, avoid collisions 30%
and be simple, reducing code size. In order to broaden its 20%
applicability, B-MAC provides interfaces to reconfigure most
10%
of its parameters.
Since B-MAC does not employ channel reservation (RTS/ 0%
1 2 3 4 8
CTS messages), the protocol mitigates collisions with an
LD
heuristic called CCA (Clear Channel Assessment), which is
used to identify transmissions in the medium. This heuristic
periodically samples the signal strength when there are no Figure 4: Average packet losses when varying LD
ongoing transmissions in order to determine the maximum and LI .
noise level (the base noise). If the sampled signal strength is
higher than the base noise, the protocol detects an ongoing
transmission. −6
LD = 1
Idle-listening is minimized with the use of a duty cy- −8 LD = 8
Transmission power (dBm)

cle. Nodes periodically sample the channel, using the CCA

−10
heuristic, to check for transmissions. If a transmission is
identified, nodes enter the reception mode. To ensure that −12
every packet sent is received by all nodes, preambles must −14
be as long as the inactive period of the duty cycle. This
−16
asynchronous channel listening method is called LPL (Low
Power Listening). −18
−20
5.2 B-MAC-PC Protocols 20 40 60 80 100 120
The B-MAC-PC protocol was implemented in the TinyOS Packets sent
operating system [13], over the B-MAC protocol. In order to
further increase energy savings, power control information is Figure 5: Transmission power behavior when vary-
piggy-backed in data and acknowledgement (ACK) packets. ing LD .
The power control information increased the data packet
size by 3 bytes (one byte for the transmitted power, and 2 Attenuation method (B-MAC-PCA). The values of
bytes for the sender address). ACK packets are increased in RXthreshold and SIN Rthreshold were defined in experiments
5 bytes (2 bytes for the sender address, another 2 bytes for where we varied the distance between nodes from 5 to 100m
the receiver address, and one byte for the ideal transmission in increments of 5m, in an outdoor area free of obstacles. We
power). employed two mica2 motes elevated 1.5m from the ground,
Besides transmitting additional fields at each packet, B- transmitting data packets at 5dBm in 100ms intervals. The
MAC-PC employs a transmission power table, described in empirical data was fed into the Friis formula [4], in order to
section 4.3. This table stores information of up to 20 neigh- identify the values of RXthreshold and SIN Rthreshold which
bors. As nodes might not send unicast messages to every best matched the expected values. The theoretical values
neighbor, the size of the table can be reduced according to and the empirical data are shown in figure 2. From this

286
 −6 100
LI = 1
LI = 4 90
−8

Transmission power (dBm)

Average delivery rate (%)

80
−10
70
−12 60
−14 50
40
−16
30
−18 B−MAC−PCI
20 B−MAC−PCA
−20 B−MAC
10
20 40 60 80 100 120 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Packets sent Distance among receiver and transmitter nodes (m)

Figure 6: Transmission power behavior when vary- Figure 7: Average delivery rate.
ing LI .

tances of 15m or more, the standard transmission power is

experiment we determined SIN Rthreshold as 10 dBm, and
RXthreshold as -85 dBm.
5.3 Experimental Results
We measured the behavior of B-MAC and B-MAC-PC
when varying the distance between the receiver and the
transmitter. Our experiment consisted of two Mica Motes
2 nodes. The first node sent 400 messages destined to the
barely enough to reach the nodes (as shown in Figure 7),
thus BMAC’s link quality decreases. In those distances, B-
MAC-PC increases the transmission power in order to main-
tain an acceptable link quality, also increasing the energy
consumed. However, this increase is compensated by a much
higher packet delivery rate.
4

second node, at a rate of four messages per second. The 3

2

Transmission power (dBm)

experiments were made in an outdoor area, free of any ob-
1
stacles. We chose to use only two nodes in order to avoid in-
0
terference with other nodes. Nodes were placed 71cm above
−1
the ground to avoid reflection and absorption phenomena.
−2
Node distance was varied from 5 to 20 meters. LI was set −3
to one, and LD was set to eight. In B-MAC, we employed −4 B−MAC−PCI
the standard transmission power, which is 0 dBm. All the −5 B−MAC−PCA
results are presented as an average of five independent ex- B−MAC
−6
periments, with confidence interval of 95%. 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Figure 7 shows the delivery rates for the protocols. Both Distance among receiver and transmitter nodes (m)

the attenuation method (B-MAC-PCA) and the iterative

method (B-MAC-PCI) sustained nearly constant delivery
rates when varying the distance among nodes. The iter-
ative method was the most stable, yielding approximately
87.5% of packets delivered. The attenuation method deliv-
ered from 79% up to 86% of the packets. B-MAC results,
on the other hand, are dependent on the distance among
nodes. It ranges from an outstanding 98.5%, when nodes are
5m apart from each other, to 14.2% for 20m of separation.
This is mostly due to the reception power, which increases
the bit error rate of the channel. For distances of 25 meters
(not shown), the transmission power in B-MAC is insuffi-
cient, and no packets are received, while both B-MAC-PC
protocols kept their delivery rates intact. When compared
to B-MAC in distances of 5 and 10m, however, both power
control methods achieved lower delivery rates. This is due
to the transmission power adjustment algorithms, and will
be explained later on this section.
Figure 8 presents the transmission power. For distances
of 5 and 10 meters, B-MAC-PCI and B-MAC-PCA decrease
the standard transmission power from 0 dBm to -5.7 dBm
and -4.7 dBm, respectively. Meanwhile, B-MAC still trans-
mits at the standard power, consuming more energy. The
use of lower transmission power allows energy savings of
27% and 21% over B-MAC when using B-MAC-PCI and B-
MAC-PCA, for a distance of 5m. For a distance of 10m,
this economy drops to 6.9% and 8%, respectively. For dis-
Figure 8: Average transmission power.
The causes of packet losses in B-MAC and in B-MAC-PC
are shown in Figures 9 and 10, respectively. In B-MAC,
for distances up to 10m, half of the lost packets are due to
CRC errors, and the other half is lost because the preamble
is not detected. When distance increases, the most impor-
tant cause of packet losses is preamble decoding. When
analysing the results for B-MAC-PC (Figure 10), we iden-
tified that a lost preamble is the most significant cause of
packet losses, accounting for roughly 76% of the total in
the iterative method (“I” bars), and 66% of all losses in the
attenuation method (the “A” bars). Thus, both B-MAC and
B-MAC-PC would benefit from a preamble seek algorithm
more resilient to bit errors.
The attenuation and iterative methods showed frequent
variations in the transmission power, as shown in Figure 11.
On the attenuation method, the transmission power varies
on each packet, and is subject to sudden variations in noise
and medium attenuation, which might cause transmission
errors. The iterative method, on the other hand, always
tries to reduce the transmission power when LD ACKs are
received. This, however, might not be a wise decision if the
transmission power is already close to the base noise. In
those situations, future versions of the algorithm will stop
decrementing the transmission power. Ideally, the transmis-

287
 90
No Preamble
the expected value, and the average error is slightly higher
80 CRC than the error incurred in rounding, which is the minimum
70 amount of error expected in such calculations. We also ran
60 the calculation in a simulator for the processor found in the
Packets lost (%)
50 Mica Motes 2 platform. Results for 20,480 runs of the code
40 with no compiler optimizations showed that the calculation
30 takes 834.17 cycles (208.54µs) on average. We chose not to
20
use any compiler optimization, since initial testing showed
10
that the compiler was artificially speeding up the calculation
by storing frequently used values. Compiler optimizations,
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 however, may be valuable in a real implementation.
Distance among receiver and transmitter nodes (m)
Property Value
Figure 9: Cause of packet losses in B-MAC. Number of runs 7929
Average error 0.2887 dBm
Maximum error 0.7526 dBm
22 Minimum error 0.0013 dBm
20
18 First quartile of the error 0.1178 dBm
Packets lost (%)

16 Median of the error 0.2342 dBm

14
12
10
Table 2: Precision of the transmission power calcu-
8 lation.
6
4
0 5 10 15 20 25
Distance among receiver and transmitter nodes (m) 6. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
No Preamble (I) Among the tasks performed by sensor nodes, communi-
CRC (I)
No Preamble (A) cation consumes most of the energy. Thus, medium ac-
CRC (A)
cess control protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
must employ energy-saving algorithms. Transmission po-
Figure 10: Cause of packet losses in B-MAC-PC wer control is one such mechanism, however it has not been
(interactive and attenuation). used in WSNs due to the limitations imposed by the sensor
nodes. This paper presented and evaluated, through simu-
lations and experiments, two transmission control methods
sion power would change only when a significant variation in
developed for WSNs. Those methods allow the definition
noise occurs, that is, the methods should be less susceptible
of new protocols, which increase network lifetime and per-
to ephemeral variations. We plan to incorporate concepts
formance by adjusting the transmission power in order to
from signal filtering disciplines in the algorithm to avoid fre-
spend the minimum amount of energy needed to reach the
quent transmission power variations. This is a challenging
receiver with a good communication quality. Results showed
task, as signal filter algorithms must be small and efficient
that transmission power control is an effective method to de-
in order to run in the restricted processors found in current
crease energy consumption, and incurs in a negligible loss in
sensor nodes.
packet delivery rates.
As future work, we intend to perfect the transmission po-
5 wer algorithms in order to avoid frequent transmission po-
4 wer variations. Also, results showed that the use of differ-
Transmission power (dBm)

3 ent preamble sizes and various preamble identification algo-

2 rithms might decrease packet losses. The transmission po-
1 wer control technique may benefit from channel reservation,
0 exploring RTS/CTS messages to improve the performance
−1 of the transmission power calculation. Finally, the proposed
−2 algorithms will be evaluated in more diverse conditions, such
−3 Iterative method as scenarios with mobility, and harsher indoor and outdoor
Attenuation method
−4 environments.
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Packet number
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Figure 11: Transmission power variation in time. The development and studies described in this paper were
completed as part of Sensornet project (www.sensornet.dcc.
ufmg.br), funded by CNPq/Ministry of Science and Techno-
5.4 Simulation Results logy/Brazil (Scientific and Technological Development Coun-
The precision of the attenuation calculation was evalu- cil). Some scholarships were given by CAPES/Ministry of
ated in a PC, using logs from previous experiments. Since Education/Brazil (Coordination for the Improvement of Hi-
nodes do not support floating point operations, the calcu- gher Education Personnel Foundation).
lation must be made with integers. Table 2 shows that re-
sults calculated in the node using integers are very close to

288
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