A Software-Defined Radio Analysis of the Impact of Dynamic Modulation Scaling within Low-Power Wireless Systems

Abstract

Dynamic Modulation Scaling (DMS) is a well-known mechanism that can effectively exploit the tradeoff between communication time and energy consumption. In recent years a number of studies have suggested that DMS techniques can reduce energy consumption while maintaining performance objectives in low-power wireless transmission technologies such as those defined in IEEE 802.15.4. These studies tend to rely on theoretical or simulation DMS models to predict network performance metrics. However, there is little, if any, work that is based upon empirically verified network performance outcomes using DMS. This paper fills that gap. Our contribution is four-fold; first, using GNU~Radio and SDR hardware we show how to emulate DMS in low power wireless systems. Second, we measure the impact of varying Signal-to-Noise levels on throughput and delivery rates for different DMS control strategies. Third, using DMS we quantify the impact of distance and finally, we measure the impact of different elevations between sender and receiver on network performance. Our results provide an empirical basis for future work in this area.