Wireless Sensor Network MAC Research Articles

Improved Quality of Services with Intelligent MAC in Wireless Sensor Networks for Mission Critical Applications

Wireless sensor networks are very feasible to monitor where human reach is impossible. But conserving the limited resource and maintaining Quality of service is the challenging task. There is most need to design an algorithm to maintain quality of services. In this paper we have designed node layered division MAC with adaptive listening based on the queue size at the transmitting cluster node. The proposed protocol attenuates the problem of collision and unfair distribution of power among the nodes. When compared with the existing algorithms, IQMAC outperforms in terms of network lifetime, delay, PDR and collision probability.

Performance evaluation of wireless sensor network MAC protocols with early sleep problem

Energy efficiency and increased throughput are the two major goals in the design of MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The traditional sensor-MAC (S-MAC) and timeout-MAC (T-MAC) protocols have been proposed to achieve these dual desirable goals by proper scheduling of duty cycles. Although these protocols have been proved to excel the performance when compared with their predecessor protocols for MANETs, the idea of duty cycling, if not tuned carefully may not work well in some linear chain topologies. We, in this paper investigated the 'early sleep' problem in specific topologies which results in undesirable extended latency in packets delivery. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of T-MAC protocol with early sleep problem. As a solution to this problem, this work also proposes a disable extended timeout MAC (DETMAC) protocol that helps the forwarding nodes towards the sink node to adaptively re-schedule their sleep/wakeup timing. It is shown through simulation results that our proposed DETMAC protocol outperforms in the terms of throughput and energy efficiency when compared to T-MAC and its variants.

Security Attacks at MAC and Network Layer in Wireless Sensor Networks

Security Attacks at MAC and Network Layer in Wireless Sensor Networks

Performance Evaluation of Wireless Sensor Network MAC protocols with Early Sleep problem

Energy efficiency and increased throughput are the two major goals in the design of MAC protocols in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The traditional sensor-MAC (S-MAC) and timeout-MAC (T-MAC) protocols have been proposed to achieve these dual desirable goals by proper scheduling of duty cycles. Although these protocols have been proved to excel the performance when compared with their predecessor protocols for MANETs, the idea of duty cycling, if not tuned carefully may not work well in some linear chain topologies. We, in this paper investigated the 'early sleep' problem in specific topologies which results in undesirable extended latency in packets delivery. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of T-MAC protocol with early sleep problem. As a solution to this problem, this work also proposes a disable extended timeout MAC (DETMAC) protocol that helps the forwarding nodes towards the sink node to adaptively re-schedule their sleep/wakeup timing. It is shown through simulation results that our proposed DETMAC protocol outperforms in the terms of throughput and energy efficiency when compared to T-MAC and its variants.

An SoC architecture for energy detection based spectrum sensing using Low Latency Column Bit Compressed (LLCBC) MAC in cognitive radio wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) requires Signal Processing and control applications in order to use technology effectively. Digital Signal Processing presents a wide range of applications in various fields with the exception of WSN due to the power constraint factor. The Spectrum holes can be effectively utilized by means of spectrum sensing technique in WSN. Multiply and Accumulate unit (MAC) is the computation Kernel in DSP Systems which in turn computes the overall speed of the system. Also, MAC is the major power consumption block due to its complex operation. Developing low power and high speed MAC and utilizing it in spectrum sensing for WSN is a challenging task. In this research, Low Latency Column Bit Compressed (LLCBC) MAC architecture is used for spectrum sensing by examining the hardware complexities. The Architecture is synthesized with 90 nm standard CMOS library using cadence SoC encounter.

A Hybrid based Distributed Slot Scheduling Approach for WSN MAC

In Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs), collision handling during transmission of data is an important challenge. MAC protocol plays a vital role in handling those collisions. Among different types of MAC protocols, schedule based MAC protocol is one where a valid schedule is prepared to handle the collision. The existing schedule based MAC protocols focus on preparing either a feasible schedule or an optimal schedule. In order to satisfy both feasibility as well as optimality feature, in this paper, we proposed a hybrid approach for slot scheduling that prepares a feasible schedule in a distributed manner and at the same time reduces the number of feasible schedule to achieve optimality. In this paper, we named this algorithm as Distributed hybrid Slot Scheduling(DHSS) algorithm. The proposed DHSS algorithm initially prepares a feasible schedule which is furthertuned in quick time to prepare a valid schedule with a reducednumber of slots. The reduction of the number of slots in theschedule improves the efficiency of data transmission in termsof latency. The simulation results show that the DHSS algorithmoutperforms RD-TDMA with respect to both the number of slotsallotted for a feasible schedule as well as the data transmissionlatency.

Spectrum handoff strategy for cognitive radio-based MAC for real-time industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks

A spectrum handoff or channel switching mechanism for Industrial Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (IWSAN) which is capable of detecting interference and hopping to another channel (in the same or other band) in a deterministic time is proposed. This is possible because the spectrum handoff strategy detects interference in the MAC layer, and can ensure the high requirements in terms of time and reliability demanded by real-time IWSAN applications. An existing cognitive radio-based MAC is used as the basis. It has been evaluated with and without the proposed spectrum handoff mechanism to assess its performance. Using Network Calculus, a theoretical analysis has been provided to determine bounds on the delay, and simulations in OPNET have been carried out in order to validate the theoretical results. Several environments have been considered in the simulation (lognormal shadowing, Rice and Rayleigh fading and interference) so as to characterize the performance of the algorithm under the most common conditions of industrial channels. The results prove the benefits of using the proposed spectrum handoff, which provides robustness and guarantees delay bounds in industrial environments with interference.

EESRA: Energy Efficient Scalable Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Many recent wireless sensor network (WSN) routing protocols are enhancements to address specific issues with the “low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy” (LEACH) protocol. Since the performance of LEACH deteriorates sharply with increasing network size, the challenge for new WSN protocols is to extend the network lifespan while maintaining high scalability. This paper introduces an energy-efficient clustering and hierarchical routing algorithm named energy-efficient scalable routing algorithm (EESRA). The goal of the proposed algorithm is to extend the network lifespan despite an increase in network size. The algorithm adopts a three-layer hierarchy to minimize the cluster heads’ load and randomize the selection of cluster heads. Moreover, EESRA uses multi-hop transmissions for intra-cluster communications to implement a hybrid WSN MAC protocol. This paper compares EESRA against other WSN routing protocols in terms of network performance with respect to changes in the network size. The simulation results show that EESRA outperforms the benchmarked protocols in terms of load balancing and energy efficiency on large-scale WSNs.

RTMCH: real-time multichannel MAC for wireless video sensor networks

Exclusive benefits gained by using the image and video sensors in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), make the Wireless Video Sensor Networks (WVSNs), design and development of their structures, a trending topic. The main challenges of WSNs which are more critical in WVSNs are throughput and end-to-end delay. The radio transceivers recently used in WSN motes can work on different channels with very low switching time. Therefore, many multichannel protocols are proposed to improve the efficiency and throughput and decrease the packet drop rate of the network. Proposed algorithms rarely provide a particular solution to the end-to-end problem. Such delays are necessary parameters in real-time applications. In this paper a real-time multichannel protocol called RTMCH is suggested to address the end-to-end delay of a stream in WVSN. A flow-based channel assignment strategy is used for this purpose. Orthogonal channels are assigned to each flows based on many-to-one data-flow to minimize the contention and collision between different flows. Transmission power is a parameter that can be controlled to achieve desired link quality and to control link delay. Channel assignment problem aligns to a constrained optimization problem to make the specified end-to-end delay of each flow. A channel assignment and real-time packet forwarding scheme are then presented. Simulation results based on realistic channel and radio model shows that the RTMCH can efficiently use multiple channels and transmission power to meet specified end-to-end delay. The results also show better performance for RTMCH over a recent real-time protocol and basic multichannel schemes.

A Comprehensive Study of IoT and WSN MAC Protocols: Research Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

Recent advances in wireless technologies, micro-electro-mechanical systems, and embedded systems enable the popular usage of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in many important applications, such as smart buildings, security, target tracking, industrial automation, and so on. Typically, a WSN consists of a large number of tiny, low-cost sensor nodes that are limited in terms of their capabilities of computation, communication, memory, and power. In WSNs, energy-efficient algorithms are of paramount importance for a long lasting high throughput network. MAC protocol plays a prominent role in extending the life-time of WSNs. MAC protocols provide various schemes on how multiple nodes access a common wireless medium. To achieve a longer lifetime for the nodes and the networks, MAC protocols need to be energy-efficient and reduce the sources of energy wastage. Energy conservation in sensor nodes is generally achieved by duty cycling the radios, and it is the MAC layer protocol that controls when to switch on and off the radio. In this paper, we discuss the essential properties of MAC protocols, the MAC for IoT and the common causes of energy consumptions. Thereafter, we categorize the MAC layer protocols and discuss several protocols under each category in depth, emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses, and giving a detailed comparison of MAC protocols. Finally, we conclude the survey with the insights on future research directions.

Design and Analysis of a Low Latency Deterministic Network MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks.

The IEEE 802.15.4e standard has four different superframe structures for different applications. Use of a low latency deterministic network (LLDN) superframe for the wireless sensor network is one of them, which can operate in a star topology. In this paper, a new channel access mechanism for IEEE 802.15.4e-based LLDN shared slots is proposed, and analytical models are designed based on this channel access mechanism. A prediction model is designed to estimate the possible number of retransmission slots based on the number of failed transmissions. Performance analysis in terms of data transmission reliability, delay, throughput and energy consumption are provided based on our proposed designs. Our designs are validated for simulation and analytical results, and it is observed that the simulation results well match with the analytical ones. Besides, our designs are compared with the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC mechanism, and it is shown that ours outperforms in terms of throughput, energy consumption, delay and reliability.

I-MAC: an incorporation MAC for wireless sensor networks

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes an innovative MAC protocol called I-MAC. Protocol for wireless sensor networks, which combines the advantages of collision tolerance and collision cancellation. The protocol increases the number of antenna in wireless sensor nodes. The purpose is to monitor the occurrence of packet collisions by increasing the number of antenna in real time. The built-in identity structure is used in the frame structure in order to help the sending node to identify the location of the receiving node after a data packet collision is detected. Packets can be recovered from where the conflict occurred. In this way, we can monitor the conflict for a fixed period of time. It can improve the channel utilisation through changing the transmission probability of collision nodes and solve the problem of hidden terminal through collision feedback mechanism. We have evaluated our protocol. Our results show that the throughput of I-MAC is 5 percentage points higher than that of carrier sense multiple access/collision notification. The network utilisation of I-MAC is more than 92%.

A Study on Channel Sharing for Congestion Control in WSN MAC Protocols

Congestion control in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has been an area of interest for researchers for ensuring timely delivery of data. A number of Multi-channel MAC protocols have been proposed which guarantee parallel and collision free transmissions. This article proposes to evaluate an existing congestion control scheme that was developed for multi-channel WSN MAC protocols dealing with traffic of different priorities. The existing scheme proposed prioritized channel sharing mechanism for nodes based on the Received Signal Strength (RSS) of each priority. The authors analyze the performance of the proposed scheme by comparing it with other channel sharing mechanisms. Four cases of hybrid channel sharing mechanisms, namely complete partitioning, complete sharing, partial sharing and prioritized sharing have been studied in this work for 2 traffic priorities. The authors have modeled the schemes for WSN applications where each node may have traffic of different priorities. Major objective of the article is to facilitate the high-priority traffic, while efficiently maintaining the network utilization through reducing the number of idle channels. The analytical model has been developed using 2-dimensional Continuous Time Markov Chains (CTMC), and MATLAB has been used for the implementation. Complete sharing and Prioritized sharing are found to be the most efficient channel sharing schemes based on the network utilization and total throughput.

Timing Structure Mechanism of Wireless Sensor Network MAC layer for Monitoring Applications

This paper aims at designing a Timing Structure Mechanism (TSM) for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) MAC, with specifying its respective logical topology, especially suitable to the monitoring applications, differentiated and characterized from the existing time bounding strategies, paving for a good performance channel access mechanism. The work proposed in this paper is based on classifying the monitoring applications so as to designing efficient setup and benefiting from the node's capabilities in dividing the network into sub-networks. By evaluating TSM against a cluster-tree IEEE802.15.4 in the two cases of one channel and multi-channel clusters, the simulation results showed that with varying the area, the TSM performs better than the two cases of IEEE802.15.4 in terms of lifetime, end-to-end delay, loss percentage by on average 103.44% and 61.84%, 96.59% and 95.37%, and 88.59% and 87.52%, respectively. Also, in case of increasing the node density, TSM is better in terms of the same parameters by on average 446.58% and 356.05%, 98.04% and 95.62%, and 77.62% and 75.2%, respectively.

Game Theory Framework for MAC Parameter Optimization in Energy-Delay Constrained Sensor Networks

Optimizing energy consumption and end-to-end (e2e) packet delay in energy-constrained, delay-sensitive wireless sensor networks is a conflicting multiobjective optimization problem. We investigate the problem from a game theory perspective, where the two optimization objectives are considered as game players. The cost model of each player is mapped through a generalized optimization framework onto protocol-specific MAC parameters. From the optimization framework, a game is first defined by the Nash bargaining solution (NBS) to assure energy consumption and e2e delay balancing. Secondy, the Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solution (KSBS) is used to find an equal proportion of gain between players. Both methods offer a bargaining solution to the duty-cycle MAC protocol under different axioms. As a result, given the two performance requirements (i.e., the maximum latency tolerated by the application and the initial energy budget of nodes), the proposed framework allows to set tunable system parameters to reach a fair equilibrium point that dually minimizes the system latency and energy consumption. For illustration, this formulation is applied to six state-of-the-art wireless sensor network (WSN) MAC protocols: B-MAC, X-MAC, RI-MAC, SMAC, DMAC, and LMAC. The article shows the effectiveness and scalability of such a framework in optimizing protocol parameters that achieve a fair energy-delay performance trade-off under the application requirements.

GTS Scheduling Scheme for Real-Time Communication in IEEE802.15.4 Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Background/Objectives: We have proposed an improved algorithm for the delay sensitive networks with bulk periodic data traffic. This kind of networks such as Industrial networks that should transfer the monitoring data has a high sensitivity to delay since these networks should work real-time. Methods/Statistical analysis: Considering and studying the industrial network traffic model, a new adaptive centralized GTS scheduling algorithm is proposed focusing on real-time communication and reliability which are two important issues in industrial wireless communication. Findings: Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is selected for implementing the industrial network. Industrial Wireless Sensor Network (IWSN) and IEEE802.15.4 standard is the most popular standard for WSN MAC layer protocol. In this paper considering the industrial network data types new GTS scheduling scheme for IEEE802.15.4 is introduced for the delay sensitive networks with bulk periodic data traffic. Applications/Improvements: Our proposed algorithm by adapting the characteristics of industrial networks and IEEE802.15.4 standard shows high gain in delay improvement.

FAMACROW: Fuzzy and ant colony optimization based combined mac, routing, and unequal clustering cross-layer protocol for wireless sensor networks

This paper presents Fuzzy and Ant Colony Optimization Based Combined MAC, Routing, and Unequal Clustering Cross-Layer Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks (FAMACROW) consisting of several nodes that send sensed data to a Master Station. FAMACROW incorporates cluster head selection, clustering, and inter-cluster routing protocols. FAMACROW uses fuzzy logic with residual energy, number of neighboring nodes, and quality of communication link as input variables for cluster head selection. To avoid hot spots problem, FAMACROW uses an unequal clustering mechanism with clusters closer to MS having smaller sizes than those far from it. FAMACROW uses Ant Colony Optimization based technique for reliable and energy-efficient inter-cluster multi-hop routing from cluster heads to MS. The inter-cluster routing protocol decides relay node considering its: (i) distance from current cluster head and that from MS (for energy-efficient inter-cluster communication), (ii) residual energy (for energy distribution across the network), (iii) queue length (for congestion control), (iv) delivery likelihood (for reliable communication). A comparative analysis of FAMACROW with Unequal Cluster Based Routing [33], Unequal Layered Clustering Approach [43], Energy Aware Unequal Clustering using Fuzzy logic [37] and Improved Fuzzy Unequal Clustering [35] shows that FAMACROW is 41% more energy-efficient, has 75–88% more network lifetime and sends 82% more packets compared to Improved Fuzzy Unequal Clustering protocol.

A Priority-based Parallel Schedule Polling MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks

A Priority-based Parallel Schedule Polling MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks

Intelligent MAC and Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

Intelligent MAC and Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

A survey on wireless sensor networks for smart grid

The traditional power grid in many countries suffers from high maintenance costs and scalability issues along with the huge expense of building new power stations, and lack of efficient system monitoring that could increase the overall performance by acting proactively in preventing potential failures. To address these problems, a next-generation electric power system, called the smart grid (SG), has been proposed as an evolutionary system for power generation, transmission, and distribution. To this end, the SGs utilize renewable energy generation, smart meters and modern sensing and communication technologies for effective power system management, and hence, succeeding in addressing many of the requirements of a modern power grid system while significantly increase its performance. Recently, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been recognized as a promising technology to achieve seamless, energy efficient, reliable, and low-cost remote monitoring and control in SG applications. In these systems, the required information can be provided to electric utilities by wireless sensor systems to enable them to achieve high system efficiency. The real-time information gathered from these sensors can be analyzed to diagnose problems early and serve as a basis for taking remedial action. In this paper, first WSN-based SG applications have been explored along with their technical challenges. Then, design challenges and protocol objectives have been discussed for WSN-based SG applications. After exploring applications and design challenges, communication protocols for WSN-based SG applications have been explained in detail. Here, our goal is to elaborate on the role of WSNs for smart grid applications and to provide an overview of the most recent advances in MAC and routing protocols for WSNs in this timely and exciting field.