Unified clustering and communication protocol for wireless sensor networks

In this paper we present an energy-efficient cross layer protocol for providing application specific reservations in wireless senor networks called the “Unified Clustering and Communication Protocol ” (UCCP). Our modular cross layered framework satisfies three wireless sensor network requirements, namely, the QoS requirement of heterogeneous applications, energy aware clustering and data forwarding by relay sensor nodes. Our unified design approach is motivated by providing an integrated and viable solution for self organization and end-to-end communication is wireless sensor networks. Dynamic QoS based reservation guarantees are provided using a reservation-based TDMA approach. Our novel energy-efficient clustering approach employs a multi-objective optimization technique based on OR (operations research) practices. We adopt a simple hierarchy in which relay nodes forward data messages from cluster head to the sink, thus eliminating the overheads needed to maintain a routing protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that UCCP provides an energy-efficient and scalable solution to meet the application specific QoS demands in resource constrained sensor nodes. Index Terms — wireless sensor networks, unified communication, optimization, clustering and quality of service

An efficient scalable scheduling mac protocol for underwater sensor networks

Underwater Sensor Networks (UWSNs) utilise acoustic waves with comparatively lower loss and longer range than those of electromagnetic waves. However, energy remains a challenging issue in addition to long latency, high bit error rate, and limited bandwidth. Thus, collision and retransmission should be efficiently handled at Medium Access Control (MAC) layer in order to reduce the energy cost and also to improve the throughput and fairness across the network. In this paper, we propose a new reservation-based distributed MAC protocol called ED-MAC, which employs a duty cycle mechanism to address the spatial-temporal uncertainty and the hidden node problem to effectively avoid collisions and retransmissions. ED-MAC is a conflict-free protocol, where each sensor schedules itself independently using local information. Hence, ED-MAC can guarantee conflict-free transmissions and receptions of data packets. Compared with other conflict-free MAC protocols, ED-MAC is distributed and more reliable, i.e., it schedules according to the priority of sensor nodes which based on their depth in the network. We then evaluate design choices and protocol performance through extensive simulation to study the load effects and network scalability in each protocol. The results show that ED-MAC outperforms the contention-based MAC protocols and achieves a significant improvement in terms of successful delivery ratio, throughput, energy consumption, and fairness under varying offered traffic and number of nodes

Low Power, Low Delay: Opportunistic Routing meets Duty Cycling

Traditionally, routing in wireless sensor networks consists of two steps: First, the routing protocol selects a next hop, and, second, the MAC protocol waits for the intended destination to wake up and receive the data. This design makes it difficult to adapt to link dynamics and introduces delays while waiting for the next hop to wake up. In this paper we introduce ORW, a practical opportunistic routing scheme for wireless sensor networks. In a dutycycled setting, packets are addressed to sets of potential receivers and forwarded by the neighbor that wakes up first and successfully receives the packet. This reduces delay and energy consumption by utilizing all neighbors as potential forwarders. Furthermore, this increases resilience to wireless link dynamics by exploiting spatial diversity. Our results show that ORW reduces radio duty-cycles on average by 50% (up to 90% on individual nodes) and delays by 30% to 90% when compared to the state of the art

Analyzing Energy-efficiency and Route-selection of Multi-level Hierarchal Routing Protocols in WSNs

The advent and development in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in recent years has seen the growth of extremely small and low-cost sensors that possess sensing, signal processing and wireless communication capabilities. These sensors can be expended at a much lower cost and are capable of detecting conditions such as temperature, sound, security or any other system. A good protocol design should be able to scale well both in energy heterogeneous and homogeneous environment, meet the demands of different application scenarios and guarantee reliability. On this basis, we have compared six different protocols of different scenarios which are presenting their own schemes of energy minimizing, clustering and route selection in order to have more effective communication. This research is motivated to have an insight that which of the under consideration protocols suit well in which application and can be a guide-line for the design of a more robust and efficient protocol. MATLAB simulations are performed to analyze and compare the performance of LEACH, multi-level hierarchal LEACH and multihop LEACH.Comment: NGWMN with 7th IEEE Inter- national Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA 2012), Victoria, Canada, 201