Performance Evaluation for ContikiMAC, XMAC, CXMAC and NullMAC Protocols for Energy Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard regulates the operations of low-rate wireless personal area network devices that forms the building block for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the modern-day smart world. Defined in 2003, by the IEEE 802.15 working group, it focuses on the Physical and Data Link Layers; which is further sub-layered into the Medium Access Control (MAC) and Logical Link Control (LLC) sub-layers. Of all things in the IEEE 802.15.4 domain, power is the most paramount as IEEE 802.15.4 devices are power constrained due to their small form factor and independent power nature, hence it become imperative to effectively manage the scarce power in other to prolong the operational lifetime of the Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). While managing the power of IEEE 802.15.4 devices, a poorly designed MAC protocols may lead to early power drainage and hence shortened operational lifetime. In this paper, four MAC implementations have been analysed and compare with respect to power efficiency; the ContikiMAC, CXMAC, XMAC and NullMAC. With 95% statistical confidence level, results show that ContikiMAC is the most power efficient MAC, which consumes the least of all three power-consuming operations, Low Power Mode (LPM) or sleep mode - 0.154 milliwatts, Listen - 0.4 milliwatts and Transmit - 0.36 milliwatts. Other forms of MAC exceed one milliwatts for all forms of power consuming operations. Detailed analysis on the subject matter is presented in this paper.