Medium Access Control Protocol For Sensor Networks Research Articles

Efficient Node Insertion Algorithm for Connectivity-Based Multipolling MAC Protocol in Wi-Fi Sensor Networks

Since low-power Wi-Fi sensors are connected to the Internet, effective radio spectrum use is crucial for developing an efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for Wi-Fi sensor networks. A connectivity-based multipolling mechanism was employed for Access Points to grant uplink transmission opportunities to Wi-Fi nodes with a reduced number of multipolling frame transmissions. The existing connectivity-based multipolling mechanism in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs with many nodes may require excessive time to derive the optimal number of serially connected sequences due to the backtracking algorithm based on the Traveling Salesman Problem model. This limitation hinders the real-time implementation of the connectivity-based multipolling mechanism in Wi-Fi sensor networks. In this study, an efficient node insertion algorithm is proposed, by which the number of derived serially connected multipolling sequences that cover nodes in Wi-Fi sensor networks converges to only one as the number of Wi-Fi sensors increases in Wi-Fi sensor networks. As verified by simulation experiments for Wi-Fi sensor networks, the proposed node insertion algorithm produces a near-optimal number of multipolling sequences that cover the nodes in Wi-Fi sensor networks. This study proposes a node insertion algorithm for the real-time implementation of the connectivity-based multipolling mechanism in MAC protocol for Wi-Fi sensor networks.

Backoff‐toleration‐based opportunistic MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks

With the development of underwater internet, Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) have become an important method for collecting marine parameters and data. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is the underlying infrastructure of UASNs. It directly affects the utilization of the underwater acoustic channel and the overall performance of the network. The ALOHA protocol is the basis of the random accessing protocols. It freely accesses the channel, so the collision between data packets is very serious. To this end, this paper proposes a Backoff-Toleration-Based Opportunistic (BTBO) protocol. In this protocol, each sensor node opportunistically learns by backoffing tolerantly, and finds the optimal transmission time respectively to transmit the data packet. Simulation results show that the BTBO protocol has better throughput and average end-to-end delay. At the same time, the authors added adaptive design to the dynamic topology networks in the UASNs. The simulation results show that the protocol can effectively alleviate these problems and improve performance.

A Scalable and Energy-Efficient MAC Protocol for Linear Sensor Networks

Linear topologies arise naturally in the context of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications for smart cities, where the infrastructure itself commonly has a linear or semi-linear structure. This is the case of buildings, public transportation systems, road infrastructure, and utility distribution networks. Given the prevalence of this type of topologies, several Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols have been designed to take advantage of their particular properties. Unfortunately, most of them do not scale well as the node density and the distance in hops to the sink increases. The result is that packets generated many hops away from the sink tend to experience unacceptable high end-to-end delay and low delivery probabilities. This paper introduces HP-MAC, a synchronized duty-cycled MAC protocol for Linear Sensor Networks (LSNs) that assigns transmission priorities to nodes to avoid collisions, through the implementation of distributed elections based on hash functions. HP-MAC also implements a packet queuing scheme that acts as a mechanism to control the amount of network resources allocated to data flows generated at different distances to the sink. This way, packets can reach their destination with loss probability and end-to-end delay that do not depend on their distance to the sink. We use a Discrete-Time Markov Chain (DTMC) to model the performance of the proposed protocol. Numerical solutions of this model show that HP-MAC outperforms state-of-the-art representatives in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay, power consumption, and packet loss probability. These results are validated through extensive discrete-event simulations.

Elastic hybrid MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

The future is moving towards offering multiples services based on the same technology. Then, billions of sensors will be needed to satisfy the diversity of these services. Such considerable amount of connected devices must insure efficient data transmission for diverse applications. Wireless sensor network (WSN) represents the most preferred technology for the majority of applications. Researches in medium access control (MAC) mechanism have been of significant impact to the application growth because the MAC layer plays a major role in resource allocation in WSNs. We propose to enhance a MAC protocol of WSN to overcome traffic changes constraints. To achieve focused goal, we use elastic hybrid MAC scheme. The main interest of the developed MAC protocol is to design a medium access scheme that respect different quality of services (QoS) parameters needed by various established traffic. Simulation results show good improvement in measured parameters compared to typical protocol.

PrEEMAC: Priority based energy efficient MAC protocol for Wireless Body Sensor Networks

Wearable wireless sensors, or Wireless Body Sensor Network (WBSN), is one of the most recent fields of research in healthcare applications. The sensors are placed on the human body to detect the critical medical parameters and transmit the collected data to a centralized node. Though the devices work at low energy and power constraints, maintenance of such devices is a crucial aspect. In light of this requirement, an efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol should be utilized to extend the life time of the network. In this paper, we propose a new “Priority based Energy Efficient (PrEE) MAC protocol” incorporated with various priorities in predefined devices based on data sensing and normal devices changing to priority when the value is more than the threshold, by modifying IEEE 802.15.4 header bits. The PrEE MAC protocol is designed based on the IEEE 802.15.4 and its Superframe structure. The simulation results show that the energy efficiency and lifetime of the proposed MAC protocol is more as compared to the existing MAC protocol.

A Receiver Initiated Low Delay MAC Protocol for Wake-Up Radio Enabled Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a broadcast-based receiver-initiated low-delay wake-up radio (RI-LD-WuR) Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for wireless sensor networks. RI-LD-WuR MAC improves delay and energy-efficiency by reducing the packet collisions. We reduce the packet collisions by reducing the contention during channel access. We design a new cycle structure and divide the nodes into K groups to decrease the contention during channel access. We propose an algorithm to determine the value of K that provides the lowest delay. To evaluate the performance, we develop a discrete-time Markov-chain (DTMC) model and drive expressions for packet delivery ratio, average energy consumption per transmitted data packet, and delay. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the RI-LD-WuR MAC protocol.

Delay and Reliability Analysis of p-Persistent Carrier Sense Multiple Access for Multi-Event Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

In industrial environments various events can concurrently occur and may require different quality of service (QoS) provision based on different priority levels. To reduce the chances of collision and to improve efficiency in multi-event occurrence, Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) is a preferable choice for Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols. However, it also increases the overall delay. In this paper, a Priority MAC protocol for Multi-Event industrial wireless sensor networks (PMME) is proposed. In PMME, use of different p values/sequences is proposed to enable multi-priority operation, which can be optimized to suit different operational classes within industrial applications including emergency, regulatory control, supervisory control, open-loop control, alerting and monitoring systems. In this work, novel mathematical model as well as simulations are presented to validate the accuracy and performance of the proposed protocol. Mathematical analysis shows that the proposed PMME can prioritize data packets effectively while ensuring ultra-reliable and low latency communications for high priority nodes. Simulations in Castalia verify that PMME with different p values/sequences notably reduces packet delay for all four priority classes. The PMME also returns a high packet success rate compared to other two well-known priority enabled MAC protocols, QoS aware energy-efficient (QAEE) and multi-priority based QoS (MPQ), in multi-event industrial wireless sensor networks.

A synchronous duty-cycled reservation based MAC protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

To design an energy-efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for the Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) is an urgent research issue since depleted batteries cannot be recharged or replaced in the underwater environment. Moreover, the underwater acoustic channels are affected by hindrances such as long propagation delay and limited bandwidth, which appear in the design of the MAC protocol for the UWSNs. The available MAC protocols for the terrestrial wireless sensor networks exhibit low performance in energy efficiency, throughput and reliability in the UWSNs, and cannot be used in the UWSNs directly because of their unique characteristics. This paper proposes a synchronous duty-cycled reservation-based MAC protocol named Ordered Contention MAC (OCMAC) protocol. The basic mechanism of this protocol is to schedule data transmission by transmitters through the scheduling of Ready To Send (RTS) frames. The protocol eliminates the possible collision during data transmission and improves communication efficiency. The paper analyzes the performance in energy efficiency, throughput and reliability of the protocol by modeling the queuing behavior of OCMAC with a Markov Chain process. Furthermore, the analytical model is validated through a simulation study. The analysis results demonstrated that while providing good throughput and reliability, OCMAC can achieve energy saving.

RPCP‐MAC: Receiver preambling with channel polling MAC protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

SummaryTo design a reliable and energy efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is an active research area due to its variety of applications. There are many issues associated with underwater acoustic channels including long and variable propagation delay, attenuation, and limited bandwidth which pose significant challenges in the design of MAC protocol. The available sender‐initiated asynchronous preamble‐based MAC protocols for UWSNs are not reliable and energy‐efficient. This is due to the problems caused by transmission of preambles for longer duration and collision of preambles from hidden nodes in sender‐initiated preamble‐based MAC protocols. To resolve these issues, the paper proposed an asynchronous receiver‐initiated preamble‐based MAC protocol named Receiver Preambling with Channel Polling MAC (RPCP‐MAC) protocol for shallow underwater monitoring applications with high data rates. The protocol is proposed to resolve data packet collision and support reliability in an energy‐efficient way without using any transmission schedule. The proposed protocol is based on the following mechanisms. Firstly, receiver preambling mechanism is adopted to reduce idle listening. Secondly, channel polling mechanism is used to determine missing data frame during its sleeping period and to minimize the active time of node and reduces energy wastage. Finally, a back‐off mechanism is applied to resolve collision when preambles are received simultaneously. In addition, performance analysis through Markov chain together with its validation with simulation‐based studies is reported in the paper. Both the analytical and simulation results have demonstrated the reliability achievable with RPCP‐MAC while providing good energy efficiency.

A Novel Synchronous MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks with Performance Analysis.

Synchronous medium access control (MAC) protocols are highly essential for wireless sensor networks (WSN) to support transmissions with energy saving, quality services, and throughput in industrial, commercial and healthcare applications. In this paper, a synchronous channel access mechanism is designed, where sensors can reserve the contention free data transmission slots in different available channels. To reduce the delay of data transmission among the nodes in the mesh topology, a linear programming problem (LPP) model is designed to select suitable relay nodes. Moreover, the performance of the proposed MAC is analyzed and our models are validated with simulation and analytical results. The results show that our proposed MAC protocol outperforms the IEEE 802.15.4e MAC mechanism in terms of throughput, reliability, delay, energy, packet drop rate and transmission success rate.

FM‐MAC: A fast‐mobility adaptive MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

AbstractAs a subset of the internet of things, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly composed of mobile nodes (MNs) to meet the emerging needs. However, nodes mobility presents significant challenges to the design of effective communication protocols, especially at the medium access control (MAC) sublayer. Interestingly, the existing mobility support MAC solutions consider only scenarios requiring slow mobility. Nowadays, some WSN applications require employing high‐speed MNs for some specific tasks. Consequently, the mobility impact is sharp as the existing solutions could no longer guarantee the quality‐of‐service requirements. To deal with high‐speed mobility, we propose in this paper a fast‐mobility adaptive MAC (FM‐MAC) protocol. The FM‐MAC protocol adopts the contention‐based access approach and introduces new mechanisms to enhance both mobility and communication management in WSNs. Our proposal consists of four contributions, ie, (1) an improved algorithm for autonomous mobility‐detection, (2) a new intercluster handover mechanism, (3) a priority‐based contention mechanism prioritizing MNs to access the medium, and finally, (4) a multichannel communication strategy intended to enhance the throughput and communication management aspects. Extensive simulations are conducted to compare FM‐MAC protocol with existing well‐known mobility‐aware MAC protocols. Results and discussion disclose that FM‐MAC performs better in both static and mobile scenarios in terms of reliability, latency, and energy saving. As expected, the advantage of FM‐MAC over its counterparts becomes more evident as the mobility speed increases.

Comparative analysis of contention based and TDMA based MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks have been widely considered as one of the most important technologies that promises wide range of applications in the field of medical, military, environment, home, agriculture, etc. A variety of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols have been proposed for wireless sensor networks. This paper presents the comparative analysis of two MAC protocols–RI-MAC, receiver initiated asynchronous duty cycle MAC protocol which is a contention based protocol and ATMA, advertisement-based TDMA MAC protocol. The two MAC protocols are analyzed using four performance parameters such as end to end delay, throughput, packet delivery ratio and energy consumption.

DAP-MAC: A delay-aware probability-based MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks

The long propagation delay of underwater acoustic communications has made traditional handshaking-based medium access control (MAC) protocols inefficient for underwater sensor networks (UWSNs). We envision that this unique feature, although often taken as negative, can be leveraged to improve the parallelism between multiple senders, i.e., transmitting data simultaneously so as to achieve higher channel utilization. In this paper, we propose a novel Delay-Aware Probability-based MAC protocol, DAP-MAC, which eliminates the handshaking process and utilizes concurrent transmissions to significantly improve the network throughput. Compatibility relation among senders based on their distances to the common receiver is derived at run-time. A utility-optimization framework uses this compatibility relation to determine the best transmission strategies for senders. Our extensive simulations demonstrate that DAP-MAC achieves better system throughput than the existing representative underwater MAC protocols.

A Slotted-FAMA based MAC Protocol for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks with Data Train

Underwater wireless sensor networks are significantly different from terrestrial wireless sensor networks in that sound is mainly used as the communication medium. The limited bandwidth, long propagation delay and high bit error rate pose great challenges in Media Access Control (MAC) protocol design for underwater wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we propose a Slotted-FAMA based MAC protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks with data train, called SFAMA-DT. It improves the channel utilization by forming a train of data packets of multiple transmission pairs during each round of simultaneously handshakes, which overcomes the multiple RTS attempts problem of Slotted-FAMA in high traffic environments and greatly reduces the relative proportion of time wasted due to the propagation delays of control packets. Our simulations show that the SFAMA-DT is able to achieve much higher throughput than the Slotted-FAMA protocol.

ADCNC-MAC: asynchronous duty cycle with network-coding MAC protocol for underwater acoustic sensor networks

To reduce the energy cost of underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWSNs), the duty cycle (i.e., periodic wake-up and sleep) concept has been used in several medium access control (MAC) protocols. Although these protocols are energy efficient, they sacrifice bandwidth utilization, which leads to lower transmission rate. In order to solve this problem, asynchronous duty cycle with network-coding Asynchronous Duty Cycle with Network-Coding MAC (ADCNC-MAC) is proposed. It contains initialization of the MAC protocol phase and data transmission phase. In the first phase, we use an asynchronous duty cycle to find a rendezvous time for exchanging data. A strategy to select network coder nodes is presented to confirm the number of network coder nodes and distribution in the network coder layer. In the data transmission phase, the network coder nodes transmit using the proposed network-coding-based algorithm and a higher volume of packet will be transmitted to the Sink with the same number of transmissions. Simulation results show that ADCNC-MAC achieves higher power efficiency, improves packet delivery ratio (PDR), and network throughput.

Modeling of variable Clear Channel Assessment MAC protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Toward devising a new efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol that overcomes the shortcomings of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard MAC, we work on exploiting the Clear Channel Assessment (CCA) feature in a more efficient fashion. This paper proposes the Variable CCA MAC protocol; a new MAC protocol that increases the number of CCAs performed by a node beyond the standard value of two. We develop a Markov-based mathematical model that describes the functionality of this new protocol. We also validate our mathematical model through conducting extensive simulations that focus on a rich set of performance parameters, including the probability of collision, throughput, channel idle time, channel collision time, energy consumption, delay, and reliability.

A Survey on MAC Protocols for Duty-cycled Wireless Sensor Networks

After more than two decades of their introduction, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) remain an active research topic due to their wide range applications in areas such as healthcare, military, monitoring and surveillance systems. In most applications, sensor nodes are constrained in energy supply and communication bandwidth. Therefore, novel techniques to reduce energy inefficiencies and for efficient use of the limited bandwidth resources are essential. Such constraints combined with dense network deployment pose several challenges to the design and management of WSNs and require energy-awareness at all layers of the networking protocol stack. For instance, at the Data-Link layer, low duty cycle Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols trade off latency for energy efficient operation. In this paper, we present a survey of state-of-the-art low duty cycle MAC protocols. We first outline the design challenges for MAC protocols in WSNs. Then, we present a comprehensive survey of the most prominent and recent MAC protocols. These protocols are classified into synchronous and asynchronous based on their mode of operation. Finally, the paper highlight open research problems in MAC layer for WSNs.

Altruistic Backoff: Collision Avoidance for Receiver-Initiated MAC Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

In receiver-initiated medium access control (MAC) protocols for wireless sensor networks, communication is initiated by the receiver node which transmits beacons indicating its availability to receive data. In the case of multiple senders having traffic for a given receiver, such beacons form points where collisions are likely to happen. In this paper, we present altruistic backoff (AB), a novel collision avoidance mechanism that aims to avoid collisions before the transmission of a beacon. As a result of an early backoff, senders spend less time in idle listening waiting for a beacon, thus saving significant amounts of energy. We present an implementation of AB for Texas Instruments' eZ430-rf2500 sensor nodes and we evaluate its performance with simulations and experiments.

Mobility Conscious Medium Access Control Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks: A Conceptual Approach

Mobility in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) presents distinctive challenges in Medium Access Control (MAC) scheme. Numerous MAC protocols for sensor networks assume that sensor nodes are static and focus primarily on energy efficiency. This work seeks to develop an improved mobility conscious medium access control scheme for wireless sensor networks with a view to enhance energy conservation on mobile sensor nodes. On this note, mobility patterns of different scenarios are modelled using Gauss Markov Mobility Model (GMMM) to determine the position and distance of the sensor nodes and how they are correlated in time.

Receiver-initiated asynchronous MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

Based on a Receiver-Initiated Medium Access Control(RI-MAC) protocol,a new receiver-initiated asynchronous Medium Access Control(MAC) protocol called Receiver-Predictive MAC(RP-MAC) protocol was proposed for the purpose of reducing the energy consumption caused by idle listening in wireless sensor networks.The wakeup time of the receiving node could be predicted by RP-MAC.In the proposed MAC protocol,a random number was used as a wakeup interval,the next wakeup time was forecasted by the previous two wakeup intervals,and the retransmission mechanism of RI-MAC was improved as well,thereby the idle listening and network conflicts were reduced.The simulation on NS2 shows that the duty cycle of the node work is significantly reduced by the improved MAC protocol in high load network,and the delivery rate of packet is successfully improved,and the network energy consumption is reduced at the same time.