IW-MAC: a invite and wait MAC protocol for power efficient wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Energy conservation in MAC protocol is a focal point for researchers for a long time. One of the main reasons is that sensor nodes are left unmonitored for a phase of time with only the inbuilt battery as the sole source of energy power. It’s the onus of MAC protocol to efficiently consume this available source of energy. It must be carefully designed in a way there is no wastage of energy source. Control packets in wireless sensor networks not only degrade packet transmission time but also suck out energy from the energy source built in the wireless sensor nodes. When the control packets collide and there is a need resend the control packets it adds up to further energy loss. A better energy efficient MAC protocol must aim at reducing the adoption of control packets following around the network instead give way for data packets to flow around. The energy efficient deteriorates when the nodes undergo too many overhead steps in MAC protocol thereby transmitting lesser packets in given time. In this paper a new protocol namely IWMAC-invite and wait MAC protocol which leverages efficient use of battery power in wireless sensor nodes. With IWMAC the nodes are enabled to transmit minimal control packets and deliver more data packets in a given time. The energy of the nodes are used primarily in actual data transmissions rather than succumbing to overhead of control packets, channel reservation, back off which drains out the energy source in sensor nodes.