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A multifrequency MAC specially designed for wireless sensor network applications

Published:06 April 2010Publication History
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Abstract

Multifrequency media access control has been well understood in general wireless ad hoc networks, while in wireless sensor networks, researchers still focus on single frequency solutions. In wireless sensor networks, each device is typically equipped with a single radio transceiver and applications adopt much smaller packet sizes compared to those in general wireless ad hoc networks. Hence, the multifrequency MAC protocols proposed for general wireless ad hoc networks are not suitable for wireless sensor network applications, which we further demonstrate through our simulation experiments. In this article, we propose MMSN, which takes advantage of multifrequency availability while, at the same time, takes into consideration the restrictions of wireless sensor networks. In MMSN, four frequency assignment options are provided to meet different application requirements. A scalable media access is designed with efficient broadcast support. Also, an optimal nonuniform back-off algorithm is derived and its lightweight approximation is implemented in MMSN, which significantly reduces congestion in the time synchronized media access design. Through extensive experiments, MMSN exhibits the prominent ability to utilize parallel transmissions among neighboring nodes. When multiple physical frequencies are available, it also achieves increased energy efficiency, demonstrating the ability to work against radio interference and the tolerance to a wide range of measured time synchronization errors.

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  1. A multifrequency MAC specially designed for wireless sensor network applications

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        William W. Oblitey

        Zhou et al. describe the use of multiple frequencies for parallel communication over the regular sensor devices that provide limited bandwidth in single channels. Using multiple frequencies in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) helps achieve improved network throughput. The paper explains the need for this protocol, showing why the already-existing multifrequency media access control (MAC) protocols are not suitable for typical WSN applications. The authors summarize the major contributions of their work as being: a novel multifrequency MAC protocol specifically designed for WSNs; a comprehensive presentation of the tradeoffs among physical frequency requirements; a presentation of new toggle transmission and snooping techniques that enable single radio transceivers in sensor devices to achieve scalable performance; and the implementation of an optimal nonuniform back-off algorithm in multifrequency MAC networks. The motivation for this work, according to the authors, was an endeavor "to obtain a better understanding of the cost that [request to send/clear to send (RTS/CTS)] control packets incur [in] multifrequency protocols in general wireless ad hoc networks, [as compared to] WSNs." The authors also present the design details of the multifrequency MAC protocol for WSNs, describe the frequency assignments and the media access methodologies, and discuss their subtleties. Six groups of experiments were used to evaluate the performance of the protocol and to compare it with the carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) protocol. Tables and figures are appropriately used to explain the experimental results. The paper is well written and very well organized (if the reader will excuse the inadvertent repetition of nine whole lines in the introduction). I highly recommend it to all professionals interested in WSNs. Online Computing Reviews Service

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