An architecture for energy management in wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Frequently, the chief concern in designing wireless sensor networks (hereafter, sensornets) is energy, usually supplied by battery or solar harvesting and often severely constrained. Minimizing operational use of this shared resource is often a primary guideline in the design of protocols and applications in this space. Despite the importance of energy as a determining design factor, it has received little architectural consideration. Our recent work [?] classifies energy as a first-class operating system resource, allowing it to be intelligently arbitrated by the underlying system. This architecture enables prioritization of user requirements on the system, enabling predictable failure, graceful degradation, and fair accounting in the face of scarce resource availability. Additionally, use of admission control and other enforcement practices by the energy management facilities allows a user