Evaluation of the wireless communication protocols' energy efficiency for versatile WSN deployments

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate, from the point of view of energy efficiency, the communication protocols whose characteristics make them suitable to the implementation requirements in the infrastructure of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). The WiFi, GSM and LoRa protocols are evaluated in this regard, being some of the most widely used for applications of sensor networks. An accurate estimation of the energy consumption for network connection, data acquisition, raw data processing, and data transmission helps proper sizing for versatile indoor or outdoor monitoring solution. The tests were performed on similar data acquisition boards, with similar sensor shields for acquired parameters, but with different data communication transceivers. A special interest was shown to LoRa, and the results of the tests show the flexibility and adaptability of this protocol in WSN with low volume data exchange.