Design and application of enhanced communication protocols for wireless sensor networks operating in environmental monitoring
by F. Chiti, M. Ciabatti, G. Collodi, Romano Fantacci, A. Manes
International Journal of Sensor Networks (IJSNET), Vol. 2, No. 5/6, 2007

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.

Online publication date: Tue, 03-Jul-2007

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