Energy-efficient medium access control with throughput optimisation for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a high-throughput energy-efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Its objective is to reduce waste energy without degrading throughput or, in other words, increase throughput without causing additional energy consumption. The sleeping and waking are based on time durations (using time counters) rather than time instants (using time slots). The sleeping and waking durations are flexibly determined by the current network workload. The proposed scheme is designed to automatically create self-controlled sleeping/waking cycles and common wake-up schedules for local group communication with no additional overhead due to a formal set-up. Simulation experiments have been performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared to some existing energy-efficient protocols.