Performance evaluation of default Active Message Layer (AM) and TKN15.4 protocol stack in TinyOS 2.1.2

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have become a leading solution to monitor and control smart buildings, health, industrial environments, and so on. Sensor nodes in a WSN have resource constraints, presenting low processing power and, in some cases, restrictions in power consumption. The resource constraints forced the researchers to develop Operating Systems (OS) for low-power wireless devices, and one of the most important and in active use is the TinyOS. This paper presents an experimental study to evaluate the performance of TinyOS default Active Message (AM) layer protocol in comparison to the fully 802.15.4 compliant protocol stack TKN15.4 developed for TinyOS. The AS-XM1000 802.15.4 mote modules were used to compare both protocols. The results showed that TKN15.4 protocol is better in both energy consumption and packet reception rate