[Phi]-MAC : an energy-aware multi-phase MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks
Abdul-Elah Sanad. Al-Sanad · UVic’s Research and Learning Repository (University of Victoria) · 2005
Wireless sensor networks can enable numerous advanced monitoring and control applications. They are characterized by a need to maximize their efficiency, especially with respect to energy consumption, since the lifetime of a sensor node has a huge impact on the usability of a wireless sensor network. In this thesis, an energy efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks is proposed. The protocol is based on IEEE 802.11, with some modifications to accommodate power efficiency and scalability which are the two main design factors for wireless sensor networks. The proposed Multi-Phase MAC (Φ-MAC) protocol uses periodic listen and sleep modes to save energy. Sensor nodes in Φ-MAC protocol are allocated into different phases so that the listen periods of the different phases are non-overlapping. Distributing the nodes among the phases allows the nodes to sleep longer and conserve battery power. This distribution also effectively reduces the traffic seen by the nodes in each phase, which reduces the probability of collisions and retransmissions. The results of the numerical simulations show that Φ-MAC outperforms other proposed MAC protocols in its efficiency of consuming power.