A wireless sensor networks MAC protocol for real-time applications

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are designed for data gathering and processing, with particular requirements: low hardware complexity, low energy consumption, special traffic pattern support, scalability, and in some cases, real-time operation. In this paper we present the virtual TDMA for sensors (VTS) MAC protocol, which intends to support the previous features, focusing particularly on real-time operation. VTS adaptively creates a TDMA arrangement with a number of timeslots equal to the actual number of nodes in range. Thus, VTS achieves an optimal throughput performance compared to TDMA protocols with fixed size of frame. The frame is set up and maintained by a distributed procedure, which allows sensors to asynchronously join and leave the frame. In addition, duty cycle is increased or decreased in order to keep latency constant below a given deadline. Therefore, a major advantage of VTS is that it guarantees a bounded latency, which allows soft real-time applications.

无线传感器网络中一种竞争窗口自适应MAC协议

媒体访问控制(MAC)协议是保证无线传感器网络(WSNs)高效通信的关键网络协议之一。MAC层协议设计的是否合理将严重影响网络的性能。介绍了现有MAC协议分类和主要MAC协议。分析了WSNs中典型的S-MAC协议,针对S-MAC协议在载波侦听时采用固定竞争窗口的弊端,提出了一种新型的能够根据流量变化对竞争窗口进行动态调整的新的MAC协议ASMAC,利用NS2对ASMAC进行了仿真,证明了新的ASMAC不仅能够显著地提高吞吐量,降低时延,还能有效提高能量效率,在提高网络性能的同时达到节能的目的。     

An asynchronous MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

The MAC protocol for wireless sensor network plays a very important role in the control of energy consumption. It is a very important issue to effectively utilize power under the condition of limited energy. The most energy-wasting part of the MAC protocol for wireless sensor network is at the idling condition. Therefore it is crucial for power saving to be able to turn off the signal transducer of the wireless network when the equipment is idling. Pattern-MAC (PMAC) allows sensors that did not transfer for a long period of time to quickly enter a dormant state, so that the problem of sensor overhearing can be greatly improved, and the whole network structure can fully respond to the actual transfer rate without too much energy consumption, but this type of design requires precise time synchronization mechanism. Achieving time synchronization is a very energy consuming and very expensive mechanism in the sensor network structure, achieving the goal is coupled with excess energy consumption and reduction of the lifespan of the sensor. Additionally, the exchange action with the neighboring pattern after each cycle, not only generates additional energy consumption for data transfer, but is also accompanied by factors such as competition, collision and pattern exchange failure. We propose an asynchronous MAC protocol (AMAC) in this paper and expect to improve the problem of energy wasting and time synchronization due to sleeping schedule exchange under the PMAC basic protocol.     

基于自适应更新的无线传感网络MAC协议

针对无线传感器网络节点能量受限问题,提出了一种新的自适应更新异步MAC协议——AU-MAC协议。该协议以睡眠与工作状态切换、异步方式和自适应更新相结合的办法有效延长了网络寿命,减少了节点能耗。AU-MAC协议通过采用发方监听、接方激活数据传输,提高了信道利用的有效性。并且,它以建立邻居节点信息表,引入自适应更新机制,来减少空闲监听。在NS2网络仿真平台对提出的AU-MAC协议的性能进行了仿真评估。仿真结果表明,AU-MAC协议在保持相当的吞吐量以及端—端延迟的基础上,使无线传感器网络的能量有效性得到了改善。     

基于TDMA的远距离无线网络MAC层访问控制

近年来,随着移动终端的普及,人们希望无线网络能够更加方便、更加高效。如今的无线网络致力于提供高效、公平以及服务质量等特性,而在远距离的无线网络环境中,这些特性却很难得到满足。提出控制终端的上行传输机制,将远距离的终端和近距离的终端同时传输,以提高基站的带宽利用率。主要解决了以下几个问题,首先,如何取得终端的距离;其次,如何调度各个终端的发送,使得带宽利用率提高。     

An asynchronous scheduled MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) comprise a number of autonomous sensors and one or more sinks to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions. Energy efficiency is a key design factor of a MAC protocol for WSNs. Due to the importance of the problem, a number of energy efficient MAC protocols have been developed for WSNs. Preamble-sampling based MAC protocols (e.g., B-MAC and X-MAC) have overheads due to their preambles, and are inefficient at large wakeup intervals. SCP-MAC, a synchronous scheduled energy-efficient scheduling MAC protocol, minimizes the preamble by combining preamble sampling and scheduling techniques; however, it does not prevent energy loss due to overhearing; in addition, due to its synchronization procedure, it results in increased contention and delay. In this paper, we present an energy efficient MAC protocol for WSNs that avoids overhearing and reduces contention and delay by asynchronously scheduling the wakeup time of neighboring nodes. We provide an energy consumption analysis for multi-hop networks. To validate our design and analysis, we implement the proposed scheme in TinyOS. Experimental results show that AS-MAC considerably reduces energy consumption, packet loss and delay when compared with existing energy efficient MAC protocols.     

Dynamic slot assignment protocol for QoS support on TDMA-based mobile networks

An efficient bandwidth allocation scheme in wireless networks should not only guarantee successful data transmission without collisions but also enhance the channel spatial reuse to maximize the system throughput. The design of high-performance wireless Local Area Network (LAN) technologies making use of TDMA/FDD MAC (Time Division Multiple Access/Frequency Division Duplex - Medium Access Control) is a very active area of research and development. Several protocols have been proposed in the literature as TDMA-based bandwidth allocation schemes. However, they do not have a convenient generic parameters or suitable frame repartition for dynamic adjustment. In this work, we undertake the design and performance evaluation of a QoS (Quality of Service)-aware scheme built on top of the underlying signaling and bandwidth allocation mechanisms provided by most wireless LANs standards. The main contribution of this study is the new guarantee-based dynamic adjustment algorithm used in MAC level to provide the required QoS for all traffic types in wireless medium especially Wireless ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode). Performance evaluation of this approach consists of improving the bandwidth utilization, supporting different QoS requirements and reducing call reject probability and packet latency.     

基于DSA的无线传感器网络自适应MAC协议研究

针对工业监测用无线传感器网络高可靠和低功耗的要求,基于TDMA协议提出了一种动态时隙分配(DSA)的自适应介质访问控制(DSA-MAC)协议,通过估计链路质量动态调整节点的时隙长度,提高数据传输的可靠性。该协议中加入了基于接收信号强度指示(RSSI)的自适应功率调整机制,实现网络的低功耗要求。利用CC2530硬件平台实现DSA-MAC协议,并在工业现场进行测试,结果表明:该协议提高了数据传输率并降低了网络能耗,能够适应工业环境的应用需求。     

An energy-efficient,transport-controlled MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), one major cause of wasted energy is that the wireless network interface is always on to accept possible traffic. Many medium access control (MAC) protocols therefore adopted a periodic listen-and-sleep scheme to save energy, at sacrifice of end-to-end latency and throughput. Another cause is packet dropping due to network congestion, necessitating a lightweight transport protocol for WSNs. In this paper, we suggest a transport-controlled MAC protocol (TC-MAC) that combines the transport protocol into the MAC protocol with the aims of achieving high performance as well as energy efficiency in multi-hop forwarding. Although TC-MAC also works through a periodic listen-and-sleep scheme, it lowers end-to-end latency by reserving data forwarding schedules across multi-hop nodes during the listen period and by forwarding data during the sleep period, all while increasing throughput by piggybacking the subsequent data forwarding schedule on current data transmissions and forwarding data consecutively. In addition, TC-MAC gives a fairness-aware lightweight transport control mechanism based on benefits of using the MAC-layer information. The results show that TC-MAC performs as well as an 802.11-like MAC in end-to-end latency and throughput, and is more efficient than S-MAC in energy consumption, with the additional advantage of supporting fairness-aware congestion control.     

Enhanced MAC protocol to support multimedia traffic in cognitive wireless mesh networks

With the advanced physical layer techniques such as multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), transmission real-time 2D/3D contents and applications becomes more and more necessary in wireless networks for the amazing growing in demand of customers. However, the low efficiency of medium access control (MAC) protocol degrades the performance of real-time traffic greatly in multihop, wireless and mobile environment. Focusing on supporting real-time multimedia traffic in cognitive wireless mesh networks (WMNs), an enhanced MAC protocol is proposed. And the contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) An efficient carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) compatible time division multiple access (TDMA)-like MAC protocol called T-MAC is proposed, which aims to improve the system performance by allocating more channel access time in centralized manner and decreasing overhead. (2) An optimal adaptive scheduling scheme is proposed to support real-time multimedia applications and guarantee QoS for different priority traffic, which aims to find the optimized schedule among all possible sequences of concurrent transmissions by minimizing the occupied resources. Detailed simulation results and comparison with IEEE 802.11e MAC scheme show that the proposed T-MAC can effectively improve quality of service (QoS) for multimedia traffic in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay and packet loss rate, which also manifests that T-MAC is an efficient multimedia applications transmission scheme for mobile terminals and MAPs in cognitive WMNs.     

Providing MAC QoS for multimedia traffic in 802.11e based multi-hop ad hoc wireless networks

Ad hoc wireless networks with their widespread deployment, now need to support applications that generate multimedia and real-time traffic. Video, audio, real-time voice over IP, and other multimedia applications require the network to provide guarantees on the Quality of Service (QoS) of the connection. The 802.11e Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol was proposed with the aim of providing QoS support at the MAC layer. The 802.11e performs well in wireless LANs due to the presence of Access Points (APs), but in ad hoc networks, especially multi-hop ones, it is still incapable of supporting multimedia traffic.One of the most important QoS parameters for multimedia and real-time traffic is delay. Our primary goal is to reduce the end-to-end delay, thereby improving the Packet Delivery Ratio of multimedia traffic, that is, the proportion of packets that reach the destination within the deadline, in 802.11e based multi-hop ad hoc wireless networks.Our contribution is threefold: first we propose dynamic ReAllocative Priority (ReAP) scheme, wherein the priorities of packets in the MAC queues are not fixed, but keep changing dynamically. We use the laxity and the hop length information to decide the priority of the packet. ReAP improves the PDR by over 28% in comparison with 802.11e, especially under heavy loads. Second, we introduce Adaptive-TXOP (A-TXOP), where transmission opportunity (TXOP) is the time interval during which a node has the right to initiate transmissions. This scheme reduces the delay of video traffic by reducing the number of channel accesses required to transmit large video frames. It involves modifying the TXOP interval dynamically based on the packets in the queue, so that fragments of the same packet are sent in the same TXOP interval. A-TXOP is implemented over ReAP to further improve the performance of video traffic. ReAP with A-TXOP helps in reducing the delay of video traffic by over 27% and further improves the quality of video in comparison with ReAP without A-TXOP. Finally, we have TXOP-sharing, which is aimed at reducing the delay of voice traffic. It involves using the TXOP to transmit to multiple receivers, in order to utilize the TXOP interval fully. It reduces the number of contentions to the channel and thereby reduces the delay of voice traffic by over 14%. A-TXOP is implemented over ReAP to further improve the performance of voice traffic. The three schemes (ReAP, A-TXOP, and TXOP-sharing) work together to improve the performance of multimedia traffic in 802.11e based multi-hop ad hoc wireless networks.     

Performance analysis of an adaptive,energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

We propose an adaptive and energy-efficient TDMA-based MAC protocol that significantly reduces energy consumption in the network, while efficiently handling network traffic load variations and optimizing channel utilization through a timeslot stealing mechanism and a timeslot reassignment procedure. We have analytically derived the average delay performance of our MAC protocol, with and without the timeslot stealing mechanism. Our delay model, validated via simulations, shows that the timeslot stealing mechanism can substantially improve the protocol throughput in scenarios with varying and asymmetric traffic patterns. Evaluation results show that the timeslot reassignment procedure is efficient in handling the longer timescale changes in the traffic load, while the timeslot stealing mechanism is better in handling the shorter timescale changes in the traffic patterns.     

一种基于空间相关性的无线传感器网络MAC协议

在大规模无线传感器网络中传输的监测数据具有较大的空间相关性,数据的传输存在一定冗余.如何有效的减少冗余数据的传输来改善网络性能成为一个重要的研究课题.本文以环状空间相关性模型为基础,从节点的筛选策略研究入手,提出一种能量高效的无线传感器网络MAC协议SEMAC.SEMAC协议采用信号强度优先的节点选择算法和冲突避免机制...     

一种低延时的无线传感器网络MAC协议

针对典型无线传感器网络X-MAC协议在多跳环境下累积延迟问题,提出一种具有低时延的Ex-MAC协议。利用管理邻居节点工作周期和虚通道算法,使得虚通道中的所有节点近似于同步,从而减少数据传输延迟,而且不需要交换同步控制帧。仿真结果与X-MAC协议相比,减少了端到端的延迟和数据包冲突的几率,提高了网络的吞吐量。     

一种新型无线Mesh网络多信道MAC协议

在基于IEEE 802.11s无线Mesh网络中,Mesh网络接入点（MAP）和门户（MPP）在网络负载较重时会出现严重的流量瓶颈。为了保证MAP流量的优先传输,提出了基于节点优先级的新型多信道MAC协议（NPBM-MAC）;为了减少在小规模组网时各BSS间频率干扰,设计了基于地理位置信息和网络负载的频率分配方案（LLBFA）。仿真结果表明,NPBM-MAC协议和LLBFA频率分配方案能够有效解决重负载网络下的MAP/MPP瓶颈问题,最大限度地满足音视频等大业务流的QoS需求。     

接收端发起的异步无线传感器网络MAC协议

为了减少无线传感器网络中由于空闲侦听而产生的能量消耗,在接收端发起的介质访问控制(RI-MAC)协议基础上提出一种新的接收端发起的异步RP-MAC。该协议通过预测接收节点唤醒时间,采用随机数作为唤醒间隔,改进RI-MAC的重传机制,从而减少了空闲侦听和网络冲突。NS2仿真结果表明,改进后的MAC协议在在高负载网络中显著降低了节点工作的占空比,提高了包交付率,从而减少了网络能耗。     

Efficient contention-based MAC protocol using adaptive fuzzy controlled sliding backoff interval for wireless networks

Efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol should be able to provide high throughput performance and efficient share of the medium. In this paper, a new contention-based MAC protocol based on adaptive fuzzy controlled sliding backoff interval is proposed to maximize the channel throughput and improve the fairness of random access channels. In the proposed protocol, every node that experiences packet collisions increases its sliding backoff interval (SB) range by a forward sliding factor (FSF). In case of successful transmission the node decreases its SB range by a backward sliding factor (BSF). Forward and backward sliding factors are controlled by the channel offered traffic using a fuzzy controller. Furthermore, the operation of the proposed backoff algorithm does not depend on the knowledge of the number of active nodes. A computer simulation is developed using MATLAB to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm and compare it with other backoff schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms other backoff schemes, such as binary exponential backoff (BEB) and the fast collision resolution (FCR) scheme. It provides a significant efficient fair sharing performance improvement which converges to the ideal fairness performance while providing high throughput performance.     

无线传感器网络MAC协议的设计研究

媒体访问控制(MAC)协议是无线传感器网络协议的重要组成部分,它的性能好坏直接关系到无线信道的利用效率和整个网络的性能。介绍了无线传感器网络MAC协议设计的主要问题,根据设计指标的不同对无线传感器网络MAC协议进行了分类,并在此基础上,分析研究了几种典型的无线传感器网络MAC协议采用的机制和方法。     

基于熵权系数法的无线传感器网络自适应QoS路由算法

针对无线传感器网络中不同业务对服务质量（QoS）指标的不同要求,以及QoS指标在网络运行过程中实时变化的特点,提出一种基于熵权系数法的自适应QoS路由（EAQR）算法。算法将路由建立过程抽象成多指标加权评分的问题,选取节点负载、平均能量势、通信时延作为QoS评价指标,采用熵权系数法自适应地确定指标的权重,选择最优节点转发数据。仿真实验显示,与有序分配路由(SAR)、能量感知QoS路由(EQR)算法相比,EAQR算法可以有效降低网络平均端到端延迟,减少丢包率,延长网络寿命。