Medium Access Control for Wireless Sensor Networks based on Impulse Radio Ultra Wideband

This paper describes a detailed performance evaluation of distributed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks based on Impulse Radio Ultra Wideband (IR-UWB) Physical layer (PHY). Two main classes of Medium Access Control protocol have been considered: Slotted and UnSlotted with reliability. The reliability is based on Automatic Repeat ReQuest (ARQ). The performance evaluation is performed using a complete Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) simulator built on the Global Mobile Information System Simulator (GloMoSim). The optimal operating parameters are first discussed for IR-UWB in terms of slot size, retransmission delay and the number of retransmission, then a comparison between IR-UWB and other transmission techniques in terms of reliability latency and power efficiency

A Study On Protocol Stack In 6lowpan Model

Due to recent advances of heterogeneous network and the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT), wireless personal area networks including wireless sensor networks are assumed to be part of the huge heterogeneous network. This calls for a smooth integration between the higher network layer protocols Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and the lower media access control (MAC) layer protocol IEEE 802.15.4. IEEE 802.15.4 is a standard that specifies the physical layer and MAC layer for Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). This standard is suited for Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs), a constrained network of tiny, low power, low rate, small size memory with low computation and communication capabilities. However, IPv6 is forming the backbone of the desired heterogeneous network. Direct integration between IPv6 and IEEE 802.15.4 lower network layers is not possible. Hence, latest technology development is the transmission of IPv6 packets over Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN). This has enforced some modification to the existing protocol stack and introduced the 6LoWPAN protocol stack. The 6LoWPAN protocol stack involves 802.15.4 physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, 6LoWPAN adaptation layer, network layer, transport layer and application layer with specific 6LoWPAN application. This review paper describes all layers in 6LoWPAN protocol stack including its routing protocols, namely the Route-over and Mesh-under. These routing schemes are applied in 6LoWPAN adaptation layer and network layer

Fixed chain-based wireless sensor network for intelligent transportation systems

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are distributed and interconnected wirelessly sensors that are used in a variety of fields of our daily life, such as the manufacturing, utility operations and traffic monitoring. Many WSN applications come with some technical weaknesses and issues, especially when they are used in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). For ITS applications that use a fixed chain topology which contains road studs deployed at ground level, there are some challenges related to radio propagation, energy constraints and the Media Access Control (MAC) protocol. This thesis develops a ground level radio propagation model for communication between road studs, and energy efficiency metrics to manage the resources to overcome the energy constraints, as well as a MAC protocol compatible with chain topology and ground level communication. For the challenges of the physical layer, this thesis investigates the use of a WSN for communicating between road-based nodes. These nodes are situated at ground level, and two-way wireless communication is required between the nodes and from the nodes to a roadside control unit. Field measurements have been carried out to examine the propagation close to the ground to determine the maximum distance between road-based nodes as a function of the antenna height. The results show that for a frequency of 2.4 GHz, a range of up to 8m is achievable with 2mW equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP). An empirical near-ground level radio propagation model has been derived, and the predicted results from this model are shown to match closely to the measured results. Since wireless sensor networks have power constraints, green energy efficiency metrics have been proposed for low-power wireless sensors operating at ground level. A numerical analysis is carried out to investigate the utilisation of the green energy efficiency metrics for ground level communication in wireless sensor networks. The proposed metrics have been developed to calculate the optimal sensor deployment, antenna height and energy efficiency level for the near ground wireless sensor. As an application of the proposed metrics, the relationship between the energy efficiency and the spacing between the wireless sensor nodes has been studied. The results provide guidance for energy efficient deployment of near ground level wireless sensors. To manage the communication between large numbers of nodes deployed on a chain topology, this research presents a time division multiple access (TDMA) MAC protocol that is specifically designed for applications requiring periodic sensing of the sensor field. Numerical analysis has been conducted to investigate the optimum transmission scheduling based on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) for ground level propagation model applied on wireless chain topology. The optimised transmission schedule considers the SINR value to enable simultaneous transmission from multiple nodes. The most significant advantages of this approach are reduced delay and improved Packet Received Ratio (PRR). Simulation is performed to evaluate the proposed protocol for intelligent transport system applications. The simulation results validate the MAC protocol for a fixed chain topology compared with similar protocols

A Collision Avoidance Based Energy Efficient Medium Access Control Protocol for Clustered Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are typically deployed in energy constrained environments where recharging energy sources and replacing batteries are not viable. This makes energy efficiency in UWSNs a crucial directive to be followed during Medium Access Control (MAC) design. Multiplexing and scheduling based protocols are not ideal for UWSNs because of their strict synchronization requirements, longer latencies and constrained bandwidth.This paper presents the development and simulation analysis of a novel cross-layer communication based MAC protocol called Energy Efficient Collision Avoidance (EECA) MAC protocol. EECA-MAC protocol works on the principle of adaptive power control, controlling the transmission power based on the signal strength at the receiver. EECA-MAC enhances the conventional 4-way handshake to reduce carrier sensing by implementing an enhanced Request to Send (RTS) and Clear to Send (CTS) handshake and an improved back-off algorithm.Simulation analysis shows that the measures taken to achieve energy efficiency have a direct effect on the number of packet retransmissions. Compared to the Medium Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA) protocol, EECA-MAC shows a 40% reduction in the number of packets that are delivered after retransmissions. This reduction, coupled with the reduced signal interference, results in a 16% drop in the energy utilized by the nodes for data transmission

Performance Evaluation of Beacon Enabled IEEE 802.15.4 MAC for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks under NS-2

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has a large number of nodes capable of sensing, communicating and computing. WSNs have limitations due to limited storage, processing and transmission power. The IEEE802.15.4 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is used for low-rate wireless personal area network (LR-WPAN). LR-WPAN is basically designed for static wireless sensor networks. However, from literatures, we observed that IEEE802.15.4 is able to support weak mobility in mobile sensor networks [7]. This paper evaluates the IEEE802.15.4 MAC for strong mobility in mobile sensor network environments. We evaluate the performance of IEEE802.15.4 MAC based on both static and mobile coordinators, and taking into account two parameters which are speed and number of beacon orders. We observed the effect on association period, disassociation, and synchronization between the mobile node and the coordinator in strong mobility of mobile nodes. From the experiments, we obtained results on throughput, association and synchronization with different speed and beacon orders. We found that the IEEE802.15.4 cannot maintain association period in strong mobility. The weaknesses of mobile node association attempt and synchronization process degrade the overall performance of a network. We also identify some research problems that need to be addressed for successful implementation of MAC protocol with strong mobility in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

An Enhanced Reservation-Based MAC Protocol for IEEE 802.15.4 Networks

The IEEE 802.15.4 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is an enabling standard for wireless sensor networks. In order to support applications requiring dedicated bandwidth or bounded delay, it provides a reservation-based scheme named Guaranteed Time Slot (GTS). However, the GTS scheme presents some drawbacks, such as inefficient bandwidth utilization and support to a maximum of only seven devices. This paper presents eLPRT (enhanced Low Power Real Time), a new reservation-based MAC protocol that introduces several performance enhancing features in comparison to the GTS scheme. This MAC protocol builds on top of LPRT (Low Power Real Time) and includes various mechanisms designed to increase data transmission reliability against channel errors, improve bandwidth utilization and increase the number of supported devices. A motion capture system based on inertial and magnetic sensors has been used to validate the protocol. The effectiveness of the performance enhancements introduced by each of the new features is demonstrated through the provision of both simulation and experimental results

MAC protocol for cooperative MIMO transmissions in asynchronous wireless sensor networks

Cooperative MIMO schemes can reduce both transmission energy and latency in distributed wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper we develop a new Cooperative low power listening (LPL) Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for two cooperative MIMO schemes: Optimal Beamforming (BF) and Spatial Multiplexing (SM). We develop analytical models for the total energy consumption and packet latency for both schemes and analyse the proposed MAC protocol in term of the total energy consumption and packet latency with imperfect synchronisation due to clock jitter. The impact of the clock jitter, the check interval and the number of cooperative nodes on the total energy consumption and latency are investigated. We observe that the Cooperative LPL MAC with Optimal BF is the most promising configuration and it is optimal when then number of co-operating nodes M=2 and jitter difference is below 0.6Tb

Enabling Green Wireless Sensor Networks: Energy Efficient T-MAC Using Markov Chain Based Optimization

Due to the rapidly growing sensor-enabled connected world around us, with the continuously decreasing size of sensors from smaller to tiny, energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks has drawn ample consideration in both academia as well as in industries’ R&D. The literature of energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is focused on the three layers of wireless communication, namely the physical, Medium Access Control (MAC) and network layers. Physical layer-centric energy efficiency techniques have limited capabilities due to hardware designs and size considerations. Network layer-centric energy efficiency approaches have been constrained, in view of network dynamics and available network infrastructures. However, energy efficiency at the MAC layer requires a traffic cooperative transmission control. In this context, this paper presents a one-dimensional discrete-time Markov chain analytical model of the Timeout Medium Access Control (T-MAC) protocol. Specifically, an analytical model is derived for T-MAC focusing on an analysis of service delay, throughput, energy consumption and power efficiency under unsaturated traffic conditions. The service delay model calculates the average service delay using the adaptive sleep wakeup schedules. The component models include a queuing theory-based throughput analysis model, a cycle probability-based analytical model for computing the probabilities of a successful transmission, collision, and the idle state of a sensor, as well as an energy consumption model for the sensor’s life cycle. A fair performance assessment of the proposed T-MAC analytical model attests to the energy efficiency of the model when compared to that of state-of-the-art techniques, in terms of better power saving, a higher throughput and a lower energy consumption under various traffic loads

Energy efficient medium access protocol for DS-CDMA based wireless sesor networks.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), a new class of devices, has the potential to revolutionize the capturing, processing, and communication of critical data at low cost. Sensor networks consist of small, low-power, and low-cost devices with limited computational and wireless communication capabilities. These sensor nodes can only transmit a finite number of messages before they run out of energy. Thus, reducing the energy consumption per node for end-to-end data transmission is an important design consideration for WSNs. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols aim at providing collision-free access to the wireless medium. MAC protocols also provide the most direct control over the utilization of the transceiver, which consumes most of the energy of the sensor nodes. The major part of this thesis is based on a proposed MAC protocol called Distributed Receiver-oriented MAC (DRMACSN) protocol for code division multiple access (CDMA) based WSNs. The proposed MAC protocol employs the channel load blocking scheme to reduce energy consumption in the network. The performance of the proposed MAC protocol is verified through simulations for average packet throughput, average delay and energy consumption. The performance of the proposed MAC protocol is also compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC and the MAC without the channel load sensing scheme via simulations. An analytical model is derived to analyse the average packet throughput and average energy consumption performance for the DRMACSN MAC protocol. The packet success probability, the message success and blocking probabilities are derived for the DRMACSN MAC protocol. The discrete-time multiple vacation queuing models are used to model the delay behaviour of the DRMACSN MAC protocol. The Probability Generating Functions (PGF) of the arrivals of new messages in sleep, back-off and transmit states are derived. The PGF of arrivals of retransmitted packets of a new message are also derived. The queue length and delay expressions for both the Bernoulli and Poisson message arrival models are derived. Comparison between the analytical and simulation results shows that the analytical model is accurate. The proposed MAC protocol is aimed at having an improved average packet throughput, a reduced packet delay, reduced energy consumption performance for WSN