Author(s)

Ibrahim Mansour, Jamal S. Rahhal, Hasan Farahneh

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Sensor networks are used in various applications. Sensors acquire samples of physical data and send them to a destination node in different topologies. Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems showed good utilization of channel characteristics. In MIMO Sensor Network, multiple signals are transmitted from the sensors and multiple sensors are used as receiving nodes. This provides each sensor multiple copies of the transmitted signal and hence, array processing techniques helps in reducing the effects of noise. In this paper we devise the use of MIMO sensor network and array decision techniques to reduce the noise effect. The proposed system uses a transmission time diversity to form the MIMO system. If the number of sensors is large then groups of sensors will form the MIMO system and benefited from the diversity to reduce the required transmitted power from each sensor. Enhancing the BER reduce the required transmitted power which results in longer battery life for sensor nodes. Simulation results showed an overall gain in SNR that reaches 11dB in some sensor network scenarios. This gain in SNR led to the opportunity of reducing the transmitted power by similar amount and hence, longer battery life is obtained.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), Cooperative Sensor Network (CSN), MIMO, Diversity

I. Mansour, J. Rahhal and H. Farahneh, "Two Slot MIMO Configuration for Cooperative Sensor Network," International Journal of Communications, Network and System Sciences, Vol. 3 No. 9, 2010, pp. 750-754. doi: 10.4236/ijcns.2010.39100.