Power requirements and battery life measurement for wireless transmission between two nodes in different mediums

One of the most important roles of the wireless sensor networks (WSN) is to avoid wiring costs, be self-sustainable and be able to function for several years. However, due to the slow progress in battery technology, power continues to be a limited resource in wireless sensor communication and electric energy storage remains to be an important issue. On the other hand, if batteries must be replaced often, many remote sensing applications may become impractical. Therefore, batteries with long life on the order of several years are needed. This paper is an extension of work originally presented in The 5th International Conference on Electronic Devices, Systems and Applications to investigate further the power requirements for wireless data transfer between two nodes using batteries with different capacities (55 mAh, 550 mAh and 5500 mAh). In particular, the effect of a propagation medium such as air, distilled water and engine oil on the wireless communication inside a one meter long metallic pipe was investigated. Our first result shows a successful transmission of wireless signal through air, distilled water and oil medium with very low transmission losses. The second result shows that an increase in the battery capacity will increase the two-node wireless sensor operation time even in different propagation medium. This result can be used to determine the required battery capacity for extending the WSN operation time.