Design of a Test Bed for Performance Evaluation in a Wireless Sensor Network
Robert X. Gao · Conference proceedings - IEEE Instrumentation/Measurement Technology Conference · 2006
This paper presents the design of a test bed consisting of multiple homogenous and adaptable wireless sensor nodes for performance evaluation of two commonly used Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols. Integration of intelligence into each sensor node through embedded control algorithm residing in a microprocessor on each sensor node allowed for modularity and self-monitoring of the sensor nodes. It further enabled quantitative comparison of the two protocols in terms of energy consumption of the sensor nodes when operating within a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Experiments have shown that the test bed provides an effective tool for quantitative evaluation of the performance of MAC protocols.