Cluster-based mobility adaptive MAC scheme for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Due to uncertain running conditions and dynamic fluctuation of network topology, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) always runs in an unexpected open environment. As the theme for the centerpiece, medium access control (MAC) protocol with superior performance is supposed to easily accommodate network changes. Most of the existing MAC protocols for WSNs, which usually provide very had network performance in scenarios involving mobile sensors, are aiming at stationary deployment application. For the energy-constrained attribute, handling mobility in WSNs is facing a significant challenge. In order to overcome these disadvantages, such as latency, extra energy consumption in fast connection for mobile nodes moving from one cluster to another, this paper puts forward a new adaptive mobility-aware MAC protocol named CM-MAC for large scale cluster-based WSNs. CM-MAC protocol proposes 1) a new cluster-head selection algorithm and 2) a priority-based bit-map-assisted (BMA) scheduling strategy. By applying the novel approach, CM-MAC achieves better performance by providing analytical models for CM-MAC, pure BMA [1], and low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) [2]. CM-MAC performs better than these protocols in terms of energy efficiency and end to end latency in mobile scenarios.