MAC Protocols for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks: Survey

Energy harvesting (EH) technology in the field of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is gaining increasing popularity through removing the burden of having to replace/recharge depleted energy sources by energy harvester devices. EH provides an alternative source of energy from the surrounding environment; therefore, by exploiting the EH process, WSNs can achieve a perpetual lifetime. In view of this, emphasis is being placed on the design of new medium access control (MAC) protocols that aim to maximize the lifetime of WSNs by using the maximum possible amount of harvested energy instead of saving any residual energy, given that the rate of energy harvested is greater than that which is consumed. Various MAC protocols with the objective of exploiting ambient energy have been proposed for energy-harvesting WSNs (EH-WSNs). In this paper, first, the fundamental properties of EH-WSN architecture are outlined. Then, several MAC protocols proposed for EH-WSNs are presented, describing their operating principles and underlying features. To give an insight into future research directions, open research issues (key ideas) with respect to design trade-offs are discussed at the end of this paper.

[1]  C. Yuen,et al.  Review on energy harvesting and energy management for sustainable wireless sensor networks , 2011, 2011 IEEE 13th International Conference on Communication Technology.

[2]  Hwee Pink Tan,et al.  Probabilistic polling for multi-hop energy harvesting wireless sensor networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[3]  Li Xiao,et al.  The Evolution of MAC Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey , 2013, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[4]  Umberto Spagnolini,et al.  Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Communications.

[5]  Xenofon Fafoutis,et al.  Receiver-initiated medium access control protocols for wireless sensor networks , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[6]  Stefano Basagni,et al.  Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting , 2013, Mobile Ad Hoc Networking.

[7]  Xenofon Fafoutis,et al.  Sustainable medium access control: Implementation and evaluation of ODMAC , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC).

[8]  Prashant J. Shenoy,et al.  Cloudy Computing: Leveraging Weather Forecasts in Energy Harvesting Sensor Systems , 2010, 2010 7th Annual IEEE Communications Society Conference on Sensor, Mesh and Ad Hoc Communications and Networks (SECON).

[9]  Faruk Yildiz,et al.  Potential Ambient Energy-Harvesting Sources and Techniques , 2009 .

[10]  Hwee Pink Tan,et al.  Design and performance analysis of MAC schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks Powered by Ambient Energy Harvesting , 2011, Ad Hoc Networks.

[11]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  Sensor Networks , 2002, Encyclopedia of GIS.

[12]  Purushottam Kulkarni,et al.  Energy Harvesting Sensor Nodes: Survey and Implications , 2011, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[13]  Duy-Dinh Le,et al.  ERI-MAC: An Energy-Harvested Receiver-Initiated MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks , 2014, Int. J. Distributed Sens. Networks.

[14]  Mrs. Swati V. Sankpal,et al.  Performance Evaluation of Proposed SEHEE-MAC for wireless Sensor Network in Habitat Monitoring , 2011 .

[15]  Lei Tang,et al.  PW-MAC: An energy-efficient predictive-wakeup MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks , 2011, 2011 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM.

[16]  Chiara Petrioli,et al.  Pro-Energy: A novel energy prediction model for solar and wind energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE 9th International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS 2012).

[17]  Prusayon Nintanavongsa,et al.  RF-MAC: A Medium Access Control Protocol for Re-Chargeable Sensor Networks Powered by Wireless Energy Harvesting , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

[18]  Sanjib Kumar Panda,et al.  Energy Harvesting From Hybrid Indoor Ambient Light and Thermal Energy Sources for Enhanced Performance of Wireless Sensor Nodes , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[19]  Habib F. Rashvand,et al.  Wireless Sensor Systems for Space and Extreme Environments: A Review , 2014, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[20]  Mani B. Srivastava,et al.  Power management in energy harvesting sensor networks , 2007, TECS.

[21]  Irene M. Plitz,et al.  A comparative study of Li-ion battery, supercapacitor and nonaqueous asymmetric hybrid devices for automotive applications , 2003 .

[22]  Xenofon Fafoutis,et al.  ODMAC: an on-demand MAC protocol for energy harvesting - wireless sensor networks , 2011, PE-WASUN '11.

[23]  Cem Ersoy,et al.  MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks: a survey , 2006, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[24]  Winston K. G. Seah,et al.  Multi-tier probabilistic polling in Wireless Sensor Networks powered by energy harvesting , 2011, 2011 Seventh International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing.

[25]  Skandar Basrour,et al.  Wireless sensor network node with asynchronous architecture and vibration harvesting micro power generator , 2005, sOc-EUSAI '05.

[26]  Sanjib Kumar Panda,et al.  Self-Autonomous Wireless Sensor Nodes With Wind Energy Harvesting for Remote Sensing of Wind-Driven Wildfire Spread , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[27]  Hongseok Yoo,et al.  Dynamic Duty-Cycle Scheduling Schemes for Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks , 2012, IEEE Communications Letters.

[28]  Honggang Wang,et al.  Power management in SMAC-based energy-harvesting wireless sensor networks using queuing analysis , 2013, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[29]  Seong Cheol Kim,et al.  QoS Aware Energy-Efficient (QAEE) MAC Protocol for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks , 2012, ICHIT.

[30]  Zhi Ang Eu,et al.  Wireless sensor networks powered by ambient energy harvesting (WSN-HEAP) - Survey and challenges , 2009, 2009 1st International Conference on Wireless Communication, Vehicular Technology, Information Theory and Aerospace & Electronic Systems Technology.