A Practical Implementation of a Cooperative Antenna Array for Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy consumption is a key issue to be handled in Wireless Sensor Networks, especially considering low-end sensor nodes, i.e. sensor with severe energy resources limitations. When sensor nodes have their energy resources depleted, they stop working which can compromise the whole network functioning, thus its lifetime. As communication is the most energy-consumption task, enhancements in communication that diminish the amount of messages lost and the need for retransmissions are very important to preserve energy resources and extend the network lifetime. Considering the impact of the energy preservation and the opportunity to exploit it in terms of communication, this paper discusses the practical implementation of a cooperative MIMO scheme based on virtual antenna array using sensor nodes in order to enhance data communication in wireless sensor networks. The conducted experiments present evidence of the feasibility of the proposed approach highlighting performance aspects.