FMAC: Fair Mac Protocol for Achieving Proportional Fairness in Multi-Rate WSNs

Nusaibah M Al-Ratta,Mznah Al-Rodhaan,Abdullah Al-Dhelaan

doi:10.4236/cn.2015.72009

Nusaibah M Al-Ratta, Mznah Al-Rodhaan + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/cn.2015.72009

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Abstract

In a multi-rate wireless environment, slow nodes occupy the channel for longer time than fast nodes and thus the total throughput of the network will be reduced. In this research, we study the problem of fairness in multi-rate wireless sensor networks. To improve the fairness, we propose a new protocol, FMAC (Fair MAC protocol) that is based on IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol to achieve proportional fairness between all nodes. FMAC protocol includes medium delay periods within Backoff algorithm to utilize the idle slots of time and reduce the number of collisions and then number of retransmissions, and thus reducing the energy consumption, which is very critical in wireless sensor networks. The experimental results show that transmissions become faster with less collisions and power consumption when applying FMAC, while the aggregated throughput and proportional fairness are increased. The detailed performance evaluation and comparisons are provided using the simulation.

Highlights

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) nowadays is regarded as one of the most recent technologies
The proposed protocol is applicable in WLANs because it does not mainly depend on the nature of WSNs
As long as the number of collisions is increasing, the retransmission number is increased, and more energy is consumed. This will affect the overall performance of the network, especially because of the limited resources in WSN

Summary

Introduction

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) nowadays is regarded as one of the most recent technologies. It is an emerging and fast progressing field in the 21st Century. Wireless sensor networks were developed initially to be used in the military field like enemy monitoring and battlefield reconnaissance [1]. Today, these networks have a variety of applications especially for tracking. The main functions of MAC layer involve frame delineation, addressing, error checking, and organize access of all nodes to the shared-medium [10]. Other goals involve fairness and stability [11]

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Conclusion