Research On Energy Consumption Of WSN For Small And Medium-sized Dams Safety Monitoring

The comparatively complete monitoring measures are only used in large water conservancyprojects at present. But80%of the dams are small and medium-sized dams in China, most ofwhich are earth and rockfill dams. The traditional artificial way has been used to monitor thistype of dams. Since the contribution of service sense system in small and medium-sized dams,it’s really very useful to apply wireless sensor network (WSN) technology, which provides anew idea for the dam monitoring. The corresponding sensors are embedded in the small andmedium-sized dams, then the data could be transmitted to the remote service center throughWSN. So the managers can master the safety of dam in time, and the dam could beguaranteed to operate stably.However, the WSN nodes are batteries powered, which is really difficult to updateperiodically in such severe environment. Therefore, it’s very important to optimize the energyconsumption of WSN node in order to extend the whole life-cycle of WSN.The current WSN protocols has been generalized and summarized, and the characteristicsof the protocols were analyzed comparatively. The corresponding protocol was chosenaccording to the characteristics of WSN in small and medium-sized dams. Based on thechosen protocol, the WSN nodes energy consumption and communication process wereanalyzed in detail, and the strategies to reduce the energy consumption of nodes wereproposed.In addition, the mathematical model of the node energy consumption was established basedon semi-Markov chain theory. In order to ensure the whole network operates well as long aspossible, the node sleeping time was extended by managing the energy consumption of WSNnodes. As a result, the energy consumption of the whole WSN was decreased. The accuracy ofthe model was verified by numerical simulation.It has been built in this paper that the prototype of small and medium-sized dams safetymonitoring system. The node energy consumption situation could be monitored while theWSN operates. The methods proposed in this paper provides good service guarantee forsafety monitoring of small and medium-sized dams.