DADC: A Novel Duty-cycling Scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 Cluster-tree-based IoT Applications

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is one of the widely adopted networking specification for Internet of Things (IoT). It defines several physical layer (PHY) options and medium access control (MAC) sub-layer protocols for interconnection of constrained wireless devices. These devices are usually battery-powered and need to support requirements like low-power consumption and low-data rates. The standard has been revised twice to incorporate new PHY layers and improvements learned from implementations. Research in this direction has been primarily centered around improving the energy consumption of devices. Recently, to meet specific Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements of different industrial applications, the IEEE 802.15.4e amendment was released that focuses on improving reliability, robustness and latency. In this paper, we carry out a performance-to-cost analysis of Deterministic and Synchronous Multi-channel Extension (DSME) and Time-slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) MAC modes of IEEE 802.15.4e with 802.15.4 MAC protocol to analyze the trade-off of choosing a particular MAC mode over others. The parameters considered for performance are throughput and latency, and the cost is quantified in terms of energy. A Markov model has been developed for TSCH MAC mode to compare its energy costs with 802.15.4 MAC. Finally, we present the applicability of different MAC modes to different application scenarios.

Broadband power line communication (BPLC) gained a lot of interest because of low cost and high performance communication network in access area. In this paper physical (PHY) layer and medium access control (MAC) sub-layer of BPLC are considered. Furthermore, effects of bit error rate (BER) are analyzed in MAC sub-layer. Powerful turbo convolutional code (TCC) and wideband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) are used in PHY layer. Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) and virtual slot multiple access (VSMA) are taken into consideration in MAC sub-layer. Multilayered perceptrons neural network with backpropagation (BP) learning channel estimator algorithm compare to classic algorithm in for channel estimating. The simulation results show that the proposed neural network estimation decreases bit error rate then in MAC sub-layer throughput increases and access delay is decreased.

In order to achieve the core chip which has the advantages of low cost, low power consumption and high integration in electronic toll collection system, the implementation of medium access control (MAC) sublayer protocol of the dedicated short-range communication is studied. Based on the analysis of working principle of MAC sublayer, the MAC sublayer is divided into three modules. Finally, the working process of every modules are realized in Verilog HDL, and the simulation results show that they are in accordance with the protocol.

IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard for low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN) and specifies medium access control (MAC) sub-layer and physical layer. MAC sub-layer in IEEE 802.15.4 provides a guaranteed time slot (GTS) to guarantee quality of service for applications requiring low latency or minimum data rate. However, since the maximum number of GTSs allowed in each superframe is limited up to seven in IEEE 802.15.4, efficient GTS allocation scheme is required to improve utilization of wireless resources and enhance quality of service. In this paper, we propose utilization-aware dynamic GTS allocation scheme for IEEE 802.15.4 to increase throughput and decrease data transmission latency. To obtain our objective, we introduce states and priorities of devices for GTS allocation. The state is utilized to determine priority of devices. PAN coordinator dynamically allocates GTSs to devices in descending order of their priorities. Performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by simulation on C++. From the results, we confirm that our proposed scheme has better performance than the conventional IEEE 802.15.4 in terms of throughput and packet waiting time.

Although the performance of the medium access control (MAC) of the IEEE 802.15.4 has been investigated under the assumption of ideal wireless channel, the understanding of the cross-layer dynamics between MAC and physical layer is an open problem when the wireless channel exhibits path loss, multi-path fading, and shadowing. The analysis of MAC and wireless channel interaction is essential for consistent performance prediction, correct design and optimization of the protocols. In this paper, a novel approach to analytical modeling of these interactions is proposed. The analysis considers simultaneously a composite channel fading, interference generated by multiple terminals, the effects induced by hidden terminals, and the MAC reduced carrier sensing capabilities. Depending on the MAC parameters and physical layer thresholds, it is shown that the MAC performance indicators over fading channels can be far from those derived under ideal channel assumptions. As novel results, we show to what extent the presence of fading may be beneficial for the overall network performance by reducing the multiple access interference, and how this information can be used for joint selection of MAC and physical layer parameters.

In this paper, we study the joint configuration of routing and medium access control (MAC) parameters in fixed wireless networks. Due to the complexity of the problem, we consider a simple slotted ALOHA MAC protocol for link layer operation. We model the link rate of the slotted ALOHA system under a saturation assumption and use a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) based interference model via the concept of conflict set. We formulate a joint routing and MAC (JRM) optimization problem to determine the optimal maxmin throughput of the flows and the optimal configuration of routing and MAC parameters. The JRM optimization problem is a non-convex optimization problem and we solve it by an iterated optimal search technique. We validate our approach via simulation and illustrate the potentially high throughput gains that can be obtained by using our joint configuration technique.

International audience

This paper addresses the issues of interference management among Low Data Rate (LDR) and High Data Rate (HDR) WPAN air interfaces that are located in close-proximity (up to 10 cm) and eventually on the same multimode device. After showing the noticeable performance degradation in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) and goodput due to the out-of-band interference of an HDR air interface over an LDR air interface, the paper presents a novel coexistence mechanism, named Alternating Wireless Activity (AWA), which is shown to greatly improve the performance in terms of goodput of the most interference vulnerable air interface (i.e., the LDR air interface). Themain difference of the proposed mechanism with respect to other collaborative mechanisms based on time-scheduling is that it synchronizes the transmission of the LDR and HDR WPANs at the superframe level instead of packet level. Advantages and limitations of this choice are presented in the paper. Furthermore the functionalities of the AWA mechanism are positioned in a common protocol layer over the Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayers of the HDR and LDR devices and it can be used with any standard whose MAC is based on a superframe structure.

In the literature, the majority of research efforts in power line communication (PLC) has been focused on the physical layer in order to deal with issues such as the time varying behavior of loads in electric power systems, the presence of high power impulsive noise, the occurrence of impedance mismatching, the widespread use of unshielded power cables, and the existence of coupling losses. While some works have also been carried out on the PLC medium access control (MAC) sublayer, there are scopes for further research to address the novel demands associated with cyber physical systems that need to mitigate unfairness in resource sharing, collisions and starvation, among other issues which may degrade data communication quality. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey regarding the state-of-the-art of MAC protocols for PLC systems, including an overview of existing PLC MAC research results and an organization of current PLC MAC protocols in terms of type of protocols, applications, and main research focus. Moreover, we present modern PLC technologies and standards, highlighting their MAC sublayer characteristics and providing a detailed comparative analysis of PLC MAC protocols in the context of current and emerging PLC applications. Finally, we identify future trends within the scope of the MAC sublayer for PLC systems with a view to stimulating additional research efforts on PLC MAC design.

IEEE 802.11 is commonly used for drone networks in a disaster environment. Because it is flexible, allows for high-speed transmission, and is cheaper than a Cellular system. However, it is not suitable for drone networks to maintain a long safe distance due to the limitations of PHY and medium access control (MAC) parameters. This paper identifies the limitation of IEEE 802.11 PHY and MAC parameters and tunes them for long-range drone networks. To do this, we first find the relationship between transmitted power, received power, and 3D distance to use an air-to-ground path loss model. Next, we identify the limitations of existing MAC parameters and adjust them. After that, performance evaluations of average network throughput and delay are performed according to the adjusted PHY and MAC parameters.

The recently released IEEE 802.15.6 standard specifies several physical (PHY) layer and medium access control (MAC) layer protocols for variety of medical and non-medical applications of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN). The most suitable way for enhancing network performance is to be the choice of different MAC and PHY parameters based on quality of service (QoS) requirements of different applications. The impact of different MAC and PHY parameters on the network performance and the tradeoff relationship between the parameters are essential to overcome the limitations of exiting carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme of IEEE 802.15.6 standard. To address this issue, we develop a Markov chain-based analytical model of IEEE 802.15.6 CSMA/CA for all user priorities (UPs) and apply this general model to different network scenarios to investigate the effects of the packet arrival rate, channel condition, payload size, access phase length, access mechanism and number of nodes on the performance parameters viz. reliability, normalized throughput, energy consumption and average access delay. Moreover, we conclude the effectiveness of different access phases, access mechanisms and user priorities of intra-WBAN.

Chapter 3 - Keep Running

The performance of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) is highly dependent on the processes that are implemented in the Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer regulated by the IEEE 802.11 standard. In turn, various parameters affect the performance of the MAC sublayer, the most important of which is the number of stations in the network and the offered load. With the massive growth of multimedia traffic, research of the network performance depending on traffic types is relevant. In this paper, we present the impact of a high-/low-priority traffic ratio on WLAN performance with different numbers of access categories. The simulation results show different impact of high-/low-priority traffic ratio on the performance of the MAC sublayer of wireless LANs depending on different network-sizes and on network conditions. Performance of the large network with two access categories and with the prevalent high-priority traffic is significantly higher than in the case of using four categories on the MAC sublayer. This allows us to conclude that the performance improvement of the large network with the prevalent high-priority traffic can be achieved by an adaptive adjustment of the access categories number on the MAC sublayer.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) play vital role in several fields and particularly add more in the health domain. Several applications in the health domain utilize the WSNs to diagnose the disease and cure the patients. However, there is threat and risk involved for exploiting the privacy of the patient and deteriorating the performance of operating tools and systems. There are few existing approaches handling the attacks to maintain the privacy issue of wireless body area sensor networks (WBASNs). Most of the threats are expected on the Medium Access Control (MAC) sub-layer that affect the performance of WBANs. In this paper, we introduce privacy preserving Medium Access Control (PP-MAC) to detect the selfish attack. The algorithm aims to save energy because selfish attack leads to additional energy consumption. In this type of attack, the illegitimate node has edge over the legitimate nodes at the MAC sub-layer. As a result, the illegitimate node consumes the resources negatively. The effectiveness of our proposed algorithm is tested by using OMNET++ and compared with other known existing MAC protocols designed for WBANs. Based on the simulation results, our proposed protocol performs better than other protocols in detecting the rate of selfish attacks, saving the energy, and performance throughput.

IEEE 802.15.4 has been widely accepted as the de facto standard for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, as in their current solutions for medium access control (MAC) sub-layer protocols, channel efficiency has a margin for improvement, in this study, the authors evaluate the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC sub-layer performance by proposing to use the request-/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS) combined with frame concatenation and block acknowledgement (BACK) mechanism to optimise the channel use. The proposed solutions are studied in a distributed scenario with single-destination and single-rate frame aggregation. The throughput and delay performance is mathematically derived under channel environments without/with transmission errors for both the chirp spread spectrum and direct sequence spread spectrum physical layers for the 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical band. Simulation results successfully verify the authors’ proposed analytical model. For more than seven TX (aggregated frames) all the MAC sub-layer protocols employing RTS/CTS with frame concatenation (including sensor BACK MAC) allow for optimising channel use in WSNs, corresponding to 18–74% improvement in the maximum average throughput and minimum average delay, together with 3.3–14.1% decrease in energy consumption.