An energy-efficient, scalable and collision-free MAC layer protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wide range of applications such as disaster management, military and security have fueled the interest in sensor networks during the past few years. Sensors are typically capable of wireless communication and are significantly constrained in the amount of available resources such as energy, storage and computation. Such constraints make the design and operation of sensor networks considerably different from contemporary wireless networks, and necessitate the development of resource conscious protocols and management techniques. In this paper, we present an energy-efficient, scalable and collision-free MAC layer protocol for sensor networks. The approach promotes time-based arbitration of medium access to limit signal interference among the transmission of sensors. Transmission and reception time slots are prescheduled to allow sensors to turn their radio circuitry off when not engaged. In addition, energy consumption due to active to sleep mode transitions is minimized through the assignment of contiguous transmission/reception slots to each sensor. Scalability of the approach is supported through grouping of sensors into clusters. We describe an optimization algorithm for energy conscious scheduling of time slots that prevents intra-cluster collisions and eliminates packet drop due to buffer size limitations. In addition, we also propose an arbitration scheme that prevents collisions among the transmission of sensors in different clusters. The impact of our approach on the network performance is qualified through simulation.. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Anantha Chandrakasan,et al.  Low-power wireless sensor networks , 2001, VLSI Design 2001. Fourteenth International Conference on VLSI Design.

[2]  Theodore S. Rappaport,et al.  Propagation measurements and models for wireless communications channels , 1995, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[3]  Aggelos K. Katsaggelos.  The value of ICASSPs , 2002 .

[4]  Anantha P. Chandrakasan,et al.  Energy-efficient link layer for wireless microsensor networks , 2001, Proceedings IEEE Computer Society Workshop on VLSI 2001. Emerging Technologies for VLSI Systems.

[5]  Nathan Ickes,et al.  Physical layer driven algorithm and protocol design for energy-efficient wireless sensor networks , 2002, MobiCom 2001.

[6]  Mohamed F. Younis,et al.  Load-balanced clustering of wireless sensor networks , 2003, IEEE International Conference on Communications, 2003. ICC '03..

[7]  Kay Römer,et al.  Wireless sensor networks: a new regime for time synchronization , 2003, CCRV.

[8]  Leandros Tassiulas,et al.  Energy conserving routing in wireless ad-hoc networks , 2000, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2000. Conference on Computer Communications. Nineteenth Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (Cat. No.00CH37064).

[9]  Fred Glover,et al.  Tabu Search - Part II , 1989, INFORMS J. Comput..

[10]  Fred W. Glover,et al.  Tabu Search - Part I , 1989, INFORMS J. Comput..

[11]  Mohamed F. Younis,et al.  Fault-tolerant clustering of wireless sensor networks , 2003, 2003 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking, 2003. WCNC 2003..

[12]  Gregory J. Pottie,et al.  Protocols for self-organization of a wireless sensor network , 2000, IEEE Wirel. Commun..

[13]  Fred Glover,et al.  Tabu search methods for a single machine scheduling problem , 1991, J. Intell. Manuf..

[14]  Mauro Dell'Amico,et al.  Applying tabu search to the job-shop scheduling problem , 1993, Ann. Oper. Res..

[15]  David E. Culler,et al.  A transmission control scheme for media access in sensor networks , 2001, MobiCom '01.

[16]  Alain Hertz,et al.  Finding a feasible course schedule using Tabu search , 1992, Discret. Appl. Math..

[17]  Chai-Keong Toh.  Maximum battery life routing to support ubiquitous mobile computing in wireless ad hoc networks , 2001 .

[18]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Wireless sensor networks: a survey , 2002, Comput. Networks.

[19]  Paul J.M. Havinga,et al.  Energy-efficient TDMA medium access control protocol scheduling , 2000 .

[20]  Gregory J. Pottie,et al.  Wireless integrated network sensors , 2000, Commun. ACM.

[21]  Adam Wolisz,et al.  A Short Look on Power Saving Mechanisms in the Wireless LAN Standard IEEE 802.11 , 2002 .

[22]  Deborah Estrin,et al.  An energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks , 2002, Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.

[23]  Satish Kumar,et al.  Next century challenges: scalable coordination in sensor networks , 1999, MobiCom.

[24]  Jan M. Rabaey,et al.  PicoRadio Supports Ad Hoc Ultra-Low Power Wireless Networking , 2000, Computer.

[25]  A. Wolisz,et al.  A Short Look on Power Saving Mechanisms in the Wireless LAN Standard Draft IEEE 802 . 11 , 1997 .

[26]  Moustafa Youssef,et al.  Energy-Aware TDMA-Based MAC for Sensor Networks , 2002 .

[27]  J. Vig.  Introduction to Quartz Frequency Standards , 1992 .

[28]  Mohamed F. Younis,et al.  Energy-aware routing in cluster-based sensor networks , 2002, Proceedings. 10th IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunications Systems.

[29]  Vaduvur Bharghavan,et al.  MACAW: a media access protocol for wireless LAN's , 1994, SIGCOMM 1994.

[30]  Anantha Chandrakasan,et al.  Energy efficient Modulation and MAC for Asymmetric RF Microsensor Systems , 2001, ISLPED '01.

[31]  Susanne Bødker,et al.  Coordinating technical support platforms , 2000, CACM.

[32]  Suresh Singh,et al.  PAMAS—power aware multi-access protocol with signalling for ad hoc networks , 1998, CCRV.

[33]  Willie W. Lu.  Third-generation wireless mobile communications and beyond , 2000, IEEE Wirel. Commun..