Abstract
The Media Access Control (MAC) serves as an imperative part of wireless communication networks which enables efficient provisioning of communication resources for device interconnectivity and ensures Quality of Service (QoS). The emergence of Large-Scale Internet of Things (LS-IoT) networks is characterised by a multi-domain distributed wireless communication network that provides end-to-end connectivity for a multitude of active heterogeneous Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices. The nature of LS-IoT networks requires robust and scalable MAC protocols to manage concurrent, dynamic and massive media access and resource allocation. Several reviews have been conducted on MAC protocols with a handful of them focused on LS-IoT networks or massive M2M networks. In this paper, the characterisation of LS-IoT networks and the MAC component are extensively discussed delineating the impact of LS-IoT on the MAC. Emerging research issues on the MAC for LS-IoT networks including high collision probability, high control overheads, spectrum constraints, timing constraints, hardware constraints, energy consumption and hidden terminals are discussed. Some recently proposed solutions in literature for enhancing the MAC in LS-IoT networks are discussed under LS-IoT specific MAC protocol enhancement classifications. The contributions and drawbacks of the recent solutions in literature are discussed and summarised. The Future direction that is oriented towards the use of virtualisation within the framework of Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) approaches is proposed. This is aimed at providing a dynamic distributed multidimensional MAC resource scaling approach for LS-IoT access network devices to ensure a robust and effective MAC for massive M2M devices in LS-IoT networks.
Highlights
The classical Internet infrastructure was initially designed as a global system for interconnecting computers using the standard Internet protocol suite [1]
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the discussions on the Media Access Control (MAC) issues presented in this paper provide the best real-life and detailed challenges that will enable the reader to formulate, identify or investigate some research patterns or new design approaches to address some of the MAC design issues; (3) this study discusses, compares and contrasts the most current approaches proposed in literature oriented at improving massive M2M communication in Large-Scale Internet of Things (LS-Internet of Things (IoT)) networks taking into account the dynamics of LS-IoT
The fundamental characteristics of LS-IoT networks were divided into the various network domains and further grouped based on the functional and physical architecture of the LS-IoT network
Summary
The classical Internet infrastructure was initially designed as a global system for interconnecting computers using the standard Internet protocol suite [1]. A scalable MAC ensures seamless multiple media access scheduling for an extremely large and dynamically growing number of M2M devices while effectively maintaining QoS requirements of the LS-IoT network. The MAC protocol needs to facilitate media access to ensure reliable transmission for a multitude of unrelated devices Achieving such cohesion to minimise complexity and ensure seamless coexistence in LS-IoT networks require reliable control information. The hidden terminal problem may still exist even with virtual carrier sensing This indicates how interference is eminent in the coexistence of heterogeneous access networks in LS-IoT which results in significant collisions which affect the scalability of the MAC protocol. This may lead to reduced performance in LS-IoT networks where more devices joining the network with high priority may not be able to transmit their frames during the TDMA-P period
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