Anches, Harris Joe T.

MSEE 1

Tutorial 1

Q1.
i.)

Compared with traditional wireless networks, what are the physical limitations restricting
the deployment of sensor networks?
Ans: Compared with traditional wireless networks, WSN can be deployed without the limitation
of an accessible location while traditional wireless should be installed on accessible locations so
extra effort must needed.

ii.)

Explain what is meant by energy-aware design.

Ans:
One of the most important requirement for the development and implementation of
wireless sensor networks (WSN) is the energy consumption. Hardware components, operations
of the sensors, the communication protocols, the application algorithms, and the application
duty cycle are some of the many design aspects affecting the energy consumption. A full design
is therefore required to estimate the contribution to energy consumption of all of these factors,
and significantly decrease the effort and time spent to choose the right architecture that fits
best to a particular application. In order to redesign to a lowest possible energy consumption
design so that energy sources can last as long as possible to maintain network operation.

iii.)

How can system performance be traded off for energy efficiency?

Ans:
In a Wireless Sensor Network, communication plays an important role in a system to
work properly and efficiently. But in order to have an energy efficient system, we need to limit
communication between nodes and try to compute instead. Also adjusting the clock frequency
and or the voltage supply can also be traded to have an efficient energy consumption. This is
called Dynamic Voltage Scaling and Dynamic Frequency Scaling.

Q2.
i.)

The Transmeta Crusoe processor can be scaled down from 700 MHz at 1.65 V down to 200
MHz at 1.1 V. By how much (in percentage terms) does this scaling reduce power
consumption? What is the corresponding reduction in the energy required per instruction?
Ans:

@ f = 700Mhz V = 1.65V

P ( fV2 ) (700)(1.65)2 = 1905.75

@ f = 200Mhz V = 1.1V

P ( fV2 ) (200)(1.1)2 = 242

1 P1/P0 = 1-(242)/(1905.75) = 0.873 x 100% = 87.3%

Reduced to as much as 87.3% of power consumption.
Po = 1905.75

P1 = 242

Instructionso = 1905.75 * (1 instruction / 1 nJ) * (1 / 700MHz) = 2,722.5 M instructions

Instructions1 = 242 * (1 instruction / 1 nJ) * (1 / 200MHz) = 1,210 M instructions
%reduced = (2,722.5 1,210)/2,722.5 * 100% = 55.56%
Reduced to as much as 55.56% energy per instruction

Q3.
i.)

Ans:

On Slide 37 of Lecture Notes 1 there is an example showing the requirements for the
processing power of a microprocessor embedded in a smart dust. If the processing power
of a low power processor is 100 mW, and the other assumptions are the same as those on
Slide 45, what is the size of the resulting mote (assuming that the resulting lithium battery
takes all the space)?
@ 100mW processing power (assuming a single day operational lifetime)
Energy = 100mW x 86,400s = 8,640 Ws = 8,640 Joules
for primary battery;
8640 J / (2880 J/cm3 ) = 3 cm3
for secondary battery;
8640 J / (1080 J/cm3) = 8 cm3