Scenario-based performance analysis of MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Due to inherent resources constraints of the sensor nodes, new algorithms have to be designed and tailored to accommodate the specific needs of the wireless sensor networks. The energy consumption is perhaps the biggest concern since the sensor nodes have limited power sources. There are two major approaches to minimize the communication overhead. The first approach is at the MAC and networking layers and the second one is the data reduction through data aggregation. In this paper, we compare IEEE 802.11 standard, S-MAC, TDMA-based protocol with three different scenarios in terms of energy consumption. Packets received at the sink node parameter have been simulated with the first two scenarios. All the nodes including the sink node is static in the first scenario. The sources are mobile and can either move towards or away from the static sink in the second scenario. The sources and the sink move in a random motion in the last scenario.