Energy Management and Optimization in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

Combining wireless sensor networks and video/voice communication for multi-data hybrid wireless network suggests possible applications in numerous fields. However multimedia data and sensor data have significant differences in data characteristics and communications. Especially multimedia codec and processing would consume a lot of energy, meanwhile high-speed massive real-time voice data processing poses challenges for wireless channel management, hardware design and energy management. In this paper, we present a wireless audio sensor network platform A-LNT, study and discuss key elements for energy management design and implementation: hybrid MAC protocol design based on super frame, multimedia codec and processing, wireless address filtering, efficient power management unit, and so on. Furthermore, we adopt experiment measurement and simulation methods, discuss and analyze these energy management strategies and optimization methods in detail. The study will provide useful advice and reference for low power design in future wireless multimedia sensor network and internet of things research.