Reliability and lifetime modeling of wireless sensor nodes

• Reliability and lifetime of a wireless sensor node are modeled and evaluated.
• Three different medium access control protocols are considered.
• A linear discharge model of the battery is used.

The accuracy of system reliability analysis depends not only on system-level model construction, but also on realistic estimation of failure parameters at the component-level. In this paper, we model and evaluate the reliability and lifetime of a wireless sensor node under three typical working scenarios, contributing toward the accurate reliability analysis of wireless sensor network systems. According to the medium access control (MAC) protocols, the three working scenarios are defined based on the sensor node modes (sleep and active) and the mechanism of alternating between the modes. Reliability and lifetime of wireless sensor nodes under these three scenarios are illustrated and compared through numerical examples.