The document discusses the objectives and design considerations of MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks. MAC protocols aim to be energy efficient by minimizing idle listening, overhearing, collisions and control overhead. Objectives of MAC protocols include energy efficiency, collision avoidance, scalability, adaptability, latency, throughput, fairness and high channel utilization.
The document discusses the objectives and design considerations of MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks. MAC protocols aim to be energy efficient by minimizing idle listening, overhearing, collisions and control overhead. Objectives of MAC protocols include energy efficiency, collision avoidance, scalability, adaptability, latency, throughput, fairness and high channel utilization.
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MAC protocol • MAC sub-layer task is to provide fair access to channels by avoiding possible collisions.
• The main goal in MAC protocol design for
WSN is energy efficiency in order to prolong the lifetimes of sensors.
• MAC protocols should have the radio
transceivers in a sleeping mode as much as possible in order to save energy 24-1-24 Wireless Sensor Networks 2 Energy efficiency in MAC Design The reasons for the unnecessary energy waste in wireless communication are:
⮚Packet collision: It can occur when nodes don’t
listen to the medium before transmitting. Packets transmitted at the same time collide, become corrupted and must be retransmitted. This causes unnecessary energy waste.
⮚Overhearing: A node receives a packet which is
addressed to another node. 24-1-24 Wireless Sensor Networks 3 Energy efficiency in MAC Design ⮚Control packet overhead: Control packets are necessary for successful data transmission. They don’t, however, represent useful data. They are very short.
⮚Idle listening: The main reason for energy waste
is when a node listens to an idle channel waiting to receive data.
⮚Over emitting: The node sends data when the
recipient node is not ready to accept incoming transmission 24-1-24 Wireless Sensor Networks 4 Objectives of MAC protocols • Energy efficiency: It refers to the energy consumed per unit of successful communication. Since sensor nodes are usually battery powered and it is often very difficult to change or recharge batteries for sensor nodes, a MAC protocol must be energy efficient in order to maximize not only the lifetime of individual sensor nodes, but also the lifetime of the entire network. • Collision avoidance: The main goal is to reduce collisions as much as possible. This can be achieved either by listening to the channel (CSMA) or by using time (TDMA), frequency (FDMA) or code (CDMA)channel division access.
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Objectives of MAC protocols • Scalability: Scalability refers to the ability to accommodate the change in network size. In sensor networks, the number of sensor nodes deployed may be on the order of tens, hundreds, or thousands. A MAC protocol must be scalable to such changes in network size. • Adaptability: Adaptability refers to the ability to accommodate the changes in node density and network topology. In sensor networks, node density can be very high. A node may fail, join, or move, which would result in changes in node density and network topology. A MAC protocol must be adaptive to such changes efficiently. • Latency: Latency represents the delay of a packet when sent through the network. The importance of latency in wireless sensor networks depends on the monitoring application.
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Objectives of MAC protocols • Throughput: Throughput refers to the amount of data successfully transferred from a sender to a receiver in a given time, usually measured in bits or bytes per second. It is affected by factors like the efficiency of collision avoidance, control overhead, channel utilization, and latency. • Fairness: The MAC protocol needs to provide fair medium access for all active nodes. • Channel Utilization: Channel utilization refers to the bandwidth utilization for effective communication. Due to limited bandwidth, a MAC protocol should make use of the bandwidth as efficiently as possible.