A reliable MAC for delay-bounded and energy-efficient WSNs

With the advent of Internet of Things (loT), an increasing number of devices start exchanging information. This puts emphasis on wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to facilitate the interaction with the environment in varied application scenarios such as, for example, building and home automation among others. In this context, a reliable communication is usually required, i.e., it is necessary to guarantee that packets arrive within a specified maximum delay or deadline. In addition, since battery-driven nodes are used and/or for the sake of sustainability, WSNs often have to economize on energy. However, most existing MAC (Medium Access Control) protocols are either unable to provide guarantees on reliability (e.g., CSMA) or they incur too much energy consumption (e.g., TDMA). To overcome this problem, we propose a MAC technique that guarantees reliability requirements while allowing for delay-bounded and energy-efficient communication. We carry out a large number of experiments based on detailed simulations with OMNeT++ comparing the proposed MAC, in particular, with CSMA and TDMA and illustrating its benefits.