Feasibility Study of Direct Communication in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been broadly deployed in civil applications as it is economically feasible to deploy large number of sensors over a geographic area. Resource constraint is one of the main drawbacks in WSNs by means of limited power sources and communication ranges. Multiple hops approach is therefore always used in WSNs. However, direct communication is feasible when the two sensor nodes are located within their ranges. Multiple data transmissions and receptions are not required and corresponding energy can be thus saved. This paper investigates the feasibility of direct communications in WSNs. Statistical analysis of the derived measurements demonstrated significant communication ranges for both indoor and outdoor environments.