Improving the Power Consumption of Thread Mesh Networks Through Genetic Algorithm Optimization
Jair A. L. Silva, Wesley Costa, Khandaker Mashrukul Islam, Jan Kleine Deters, Ewout Bergsma, Hélder R. O. Rocha, Patrick Noordhoek, H. J. Wörtche · IEEE Sensors Letters · 2024
Reliability is a constraint of low-power wireless connectivity, commonly addressed by the deployment of mesh topology. Accordingly, power consumption becomes a major concern during the design and implementation of such networks. Thus, a mono-objective optimization was implemented in this work to decrease the total amount of power consumed by a low-power wireless mesh network based on Thread protocol. Using a genetic algorithm, the optimization procedure takes into account a predefined connectivity matrix, in which the possible distances between all network devices are considered. The experimental proof-of-concept shows that a mean gain of 26.45 dB is achievable in a specific scenario. Through our experimental results, we conclude that the Thread mesh protocol has much leeway to meet the low-power consumption requirement of wireless sensor networks.