Title: Design and application of enhanced communication protocols for wireless sensor networks operating in environmental monitoring

Authors: F. Chiti, M. Ciabatti, G. Collodi, Romano Fantacci, A. Manes

Addresses: Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. ' Dipartimento di Energetica, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Italy

Abstract: The effective application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) to wide area environmental monitoring currently represents a challenge for this technology. Since devices are usually energy constrained, smart power saving procedures are needed to increase the network lifetime. A common approach is to switch off the node|s radio; this definitely requires the adoption of synchronisation procedures that properly schedule packets transmission to avoid both overhearing effects and collisions. To this end, a novel class of MAC layer protocols, named STAR MAC, is presented. This is further improved by introducing STAR+ scheme and properly integrating within a routing solution, according to the cross-layer design. It allows the optimisation of energetic consumption, or equivalently, network life-time, together with minimising the signalling overhead. The proposed solution is then applied to a realistic user-defined scenario, highlighting remarkable advantages both in terms of robustness, self reconfigurability, cost, complexity and QoS, thus validating the proposed solution.

Keywords: wireless sensor networks; WSNs; MAC protocols; energy efficiency; synchronisation; wireless networks; enhanced communication protocols; environmental monitoring; medium access control.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2007.014355

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2007 Vol.2 No.5/6, pp.299 - 310

Published online: 03 Jul 2007 *

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