Low-Power 60-GHz CMOS Radios for Miniature Wireless Sensor Network Applications - Ultra-Wideband and 60 GHz Communications for Biomedical Applications - page 185

Fig. 2 Wireless sensor network applications
Fig. 3 Block diagram for a
typical wireless sensor
network (WSN) node
are generally desirable, nonetheless, quite challenging. In this section, we will start
with the conventional WSN node and then explain the difficulties of realizing a
low-power mm-scale WSN radio.
Conventional Wireless Sensor Node
Figure 3 shows the block diagram of a typical integrated WSN node. Each node
generally has one to five sensors (e.g., temperature, pressure, accelerometer), a
digital signal processor (DSP), voltage regulation and power management controller,
a radio frequency (RF) front end and antennas for wireless communication, a battery
as the energy source, and a crystal for a frequency reference. Among the building
blocks, the power source, antenna, and the crystal are the hardest components to
integrate in silicon [ 4 ], which is desirable for lowering cost and miniaturization of