2019 IEEE 4th International Conference on Computer and Communication Systems
A Performance Analysis of the Data Gathering Model for Unslotted CSMA/CA in
Home Automation Environment
Mais A. Khalil
Engineering Department
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom
e-mail: makk2@leicester.ac.uk
Abstract—The medium access control (MAC) protocol
provided by the IEEE 802.15.4 standard (contention-based
CSMA/CA scheme) is not tailored to supply the QoS support
demanded by real-time applications because of collisions,
especially under high loads. The Internet of Things (IoT)
exemplifies a networking paradigm which requires the
incorporation and interoperability of diversified wireless
standards. Data delivery across such integrated frameworks
encounters challenges in terms of scalability and latency
among other aspects. As a comprehensive analysis addressing
such constraints is not available, we have developed a new
technique for data gathering and have performed experiments
to explore its effect on scalable network efficiency. The
experimental network consisted of Waspmotes, programmed
in C++ in a scalable star topology, emulating a typical home
IoT network. Performance parameters of the MAC layer were
measured while varying the network size and sending
technique in non-beacon transmission mode. Results show that
network performance varies greatly with different delivery
modes, providing a theoretical basis for improving network
structure in smart home applications.
Keywords-WSN; CSMA/CA; delivery modes; IoT
I. INTRODUCTION
A wireless sensor network (WSN) is a collection of
nodes deployed to measure and report certain parameters in
applications such as environmental, biomedical, surveillance
and security. Each sensor node consists of sensing,
processing, power and radio units [1], [2], [3]. Sensor nodes
report to specific sink-nodes which then convey information
to the internet. Fig. 1 depicts this WSN model [4].
Different data collection methods are used in a WSN,
depending on the application. In an event-driven network,
the reporting process is triggered by one or more sensor
nodes which observe an event and relay it to the monitoring
station. By contrast, in a demand-driven network the
reporting process, is initiated by the monitoring station and
sensor nodes report their data in response to a specified
request. In a time-driven network, each sensor node sends
data in a periodic manner. A wildlife-monitoring WSN in a
forest is likely to be event-driven, whereas an inventory
control system will probably be demand-driven. A hybrid
system is one that can manage both classes, event and
demand-driven.
The Internet of Things (IoT) was first conceived by the
MIT Auto-ID Center [5] and has acquired considerable
978-1-7281-1322-7/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
David R. Siddle
Engineering Department
University of Leicester
Leicester, United Kingdom
e-mail: drs13@leicester.ac.uk
attention, driven by an increased number of wireless
autonomous devices, the expansibility of the internet and a
drive to reduce errors and increase efficiency [6]. However,
the IoT paradigm has spread out since to accommodate any
object which has the capability to interact directly with its
regional neighbors. In this context, the Internet can be
regarded as a backbone network that connects a large
number of smaller peripheral networks, each of which would
group physical objects according to their physical properties
and neighborhood relationships. In a standard WSN topology,
if every end node communicates directly with the access
point, ignoring the neighbor nodes in the network and data
delivery mode, then the communication load would cause
performance degradation in throughput and latency and
exhaust the system’s power resources. Therefore, the aim of
this study was to investigate through experiment, what was
the best delivery technique in a scaled star topology network
that could be later on applied in an IoT environment such as
a smart home environment.
Figure 1. Multi-hop wireless sensor network model.
II. RELATED WORK
The MAC layer provides two different modes of channel
access operation: the beacon and non-beacon mode. In the
non-beacon mode, the unslotted CSMA/CA mechanism is
used to postpone for a random period of time and sense the
channel before the packet transmission. The sensor node can
send the packet only when the channel is sensed to be idle.
Otherwise, it delays for another random time period and
checks the channel again. However, beacon mode (i.e with
slotted CSMA/CA), comprises a Superframe structure with
an optional reservation-based mechanism called guaranteed
time slot (GTS) [7] which is out of the paper scope. Diverse
research studies and analytical models for performance
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evaluation of the IEEE 802.15.4 have been proposed so far.
The vast majority of these explorations take into account the
slotted version of the protocol, while the non-beacon mode
(that is unslotted CSMA/CA) has attracted much less
attention. though considerable divergence exists between the
two versions of protocol, the methodology adopted for the
analysis for both techniques share some similarities.
Therefore, we overviewed the most relevant work on the two
modes in terms of different IEEE802.15. 4 performance
metrics.
The influence of routing and multi-hop transmission on
both latency and power consumption in the slotted MAC
protocol was explored by Persia and Cassioli [8]. Buratti and
Verdone [9] determine the packet latency and packet
delivery ratio for N sensor nodes that try to report a single
packet simultaneously to the gateway. Martelli et al. [10]
extended this work by taking into account the hidden node
problem using the theory of stochastic geometry. However,
neither of these studies consider the effects of
acknowledgements and retransmissions. Guglielmo et al. [11]
consider unslotted CSMA/CA in event-driven applications
and assume that, when an event is detected, all (or a vast
majority of) sensor nodes in the network begin sending data
simultaneously. A similar scenario is considered by Cao et al.
[12] provide an accurate model of 802.15.4 CSMA/CA
(which explores both the case with and without
retransmissions) and validate it extensively over simulations,
but provide no experimental validation. Cao et al. in [12]
provide an analytical model concentrating on the periodic
traffic in the slotted version of 802.15.4 CSMA/CA and this
differs completely from the unslotted version in [11].
Regarding data gathering techniques, Campobello et al.
in [13] introduced a simple analytical model to predict the
energy efficiency and reliability of different techniques.
Simulation and analytical results show that the trade-off
between energy consumptions and reliability could drive the
choice of the data gathering technique to be used. The four-
dimensional Moulik et al. [14] use Markov chain-based
analysis of slotted CSMA/CA, including backoff-freezing
and acknowledged packet transmission to evaluate the
effects of the inactive portion of a superframe on average
delay, and average power consumption. This work provides
optimized superframe order values that achieve trade-offs
between delay and power consumption as demanded by user-
provided QoS requirements, corresponding to different
contexts and scenarios. It should be noted that all the
previous studies analyze the performance in either time-
driven slotted CSMA/CA or event-driven unslotted
CSMA/CA WSNs without taking into account the effect of
network size and sending technique on IEEE.802.15.4 MAC
layer performance in terms of delay and packet delivery ratio.
In this study, we applied time-driven applications and
consider that all nodes send periodic traffic by non-beacon-
enabled transmission to the sink in a scalable star topology.
In this mode, the generation of periodic beacon frames is
disabled. When a device wishes to transfer data in a non-
beacon-enabled PAN, it simply transmits its data frame,
using unslotted CSMA-CA, to the coordinator. The PAN
coordinator is responsible for handling only device
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association/disassociation. The coordinator acknowledges
the successful reception of the data by transmitting an
optional acknowledgment frame. The transaction is now
complete. This sequence is illustrated in the Fig. 2.
Figure 2. Communication to a Coordinator in a non-beacon-enabled PAN.
Zhang and Luo [15] proposed similar work, using
different network topologies for different network size and
load. However, they didn’t consider the influence of network
size and data delivery mechanism specifically on the star
topology. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap by
investigating the impact of data delivery model on the WSN
efficiency in terms of delay and packet delivery ratio.
III. CLASSIFICATION OF MAC PROTOCOLS IN WSNS
The main requirements of a traditional wireless network
MAC protocol are low latency, scalability, and high
bandwidth utilization leading to a good throughput. MAC
protocols can be classified into two fundamental categories
[16]: schedule-based protocols and contention-based
protocols.
The protocols in the first category are essentially Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA) protocols. In the
initialization period of TDMA protocols, the transmission
schedule is distributed by a centralized (master) node. After
the initialization period, no control packets are required, so
there is no overhead. TDMA protocols are collision free and
function best in single-hop networks environment. They
adhere to rigid synchronization among nodes in order to
coordinate node transmission slots. TDMA-based
mechanisms are not adaptive. Once the transmission
schedule is achieved, it cannot be altered to accommodate
newly joined nodes. TDMA protocols suffer from a
scalability problem. They cannot support a large number of
nodes because of a significant increase of the latency with
the number of nodes.
The second category of MAC protocols are Contention-
based protocols which are basically Carrier Sense Multiple
Access (CSMA) protocols [17]. In CSMA, wireless sensor
nodes sense the communication medium and postpone their
transmission in the case of busy channel. CSMA protocols
are adaptive so they can easily accommodate newly added
nodes, do not require severe synchronization among nodes,
and can support a large number of sensor nodes (scalable).
Multi-hop communication is easier to handle in CSMA
algorithms than in TDMA ones. On the other hand, CSMA
suffers from packet collision and idle listening problems.
Collisions require retransmission of data, which results in
waste of energy resources. Idle listening incurs energy use
while nodes are neither transmitting nor receiving data. Idle
listening is a considerable cause of energy waste in WSNs.
depleting 50% to 100% of the energy required for receiving
[18, 19].
The preferred scheduling technique in WSNs is TDMA,
since it is more reliable, does not require a complex
hardware design and allows inactive nodes to enter the sleep
state. Hence it provides excellent energy savings, but is not
scalable, nor adaptive to the dynamic changes of the number
of nodes in the network. Consequently, we developed an
improved MAC mechanism who is more reliable and take
into account the aforementioned issues. Scalability. A MAC
protocol should adapt and run properly in a dynamic and
scalable topology.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ANALYSIS
In this study, the scalability and data delivery technique
of a single-hop star topology is considered, with a PAN
coordinator at the center of the network, using, 2, 10 or 30
end nodes which only communicate with the coordinator in a
periodic transmission (one packet every 2 seconds) using
unslotted CSMA/CA. Each node with pending packets starts
the CSMA/CA algorithm in the active period of its duty
cycle to detect the channel and send the packets.
A. Physical Testbed Scenario
The experimental network was based on the Libelium
Waspmote as hardware platform [20], due to its energy
efficiency and ease of programming it in C++. This is an
open source microcontroller board based on the
ATmega1281 chip. The XBee module is deployed as a radio
communication for MAC and PHY layers of the IEEE
802.15.4 standard, while a temperature sensor is used as a
sensing part for the sensor node. Backoff exponent (BE) is a
random number determines the random backoff interval
before sensing the channel. Maximum number of CSMA
backoff (NB) or sometimes called (macMaxCSMABackoffs)
is the number of times that the node stays in the backoff
stage after unsuccessful channel sensing before the packet
being dropped.
Figure 3. Analysis testbed architecture.
Two sensor node prototypes have been applied in this
analysis, the simple and the advanced cluster head. The
simple node performs sensing and communication only,
without any processing capabilities. This node is composed
of a temperature sensor (MCP9700A) plugged to
ANALOG6 pin of Waspmote board. It sends data packets to
the cluster head in hierarchical topology. The advanced
cluster head node performs communication and processing
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of the received data. It represents a sink and a cluster head
among cluster members. Fig. 3 explains the testbed
architecture. The nodes were configured as shown in table 1:
TABLE I. CONFIGURE INFORMATION
Characteristic Value Characteristic Value
Transmission 18 dB (60.6 Beacon enabled disenabled
power level mW)
Transmission 2.4GHz BE min 0
bands
Data rate 250kbps NB max 4
Receiver -96 dBm Acknowledgement enabled
sensitivity mode
B. Parameter Setting
The main performance parameters measured in this
analysis were delay and packet delivery ratio (PDR). Delay
in the MAC layer represents the end to end delay of each
packet received by the 802.15.4 MACs of all WPAN nodes
in the network and forwarded to the higher layers. MAC
layer notifies the upper layers about successful transmission
or deletion of MAC packet. Hence, the MAC layer delay is
defined as the time interval from the instant packet received
by MAC layer to the instant notification about the final status
of the packet sent. In applications sensitive to time, a long
delay would seriously affect the quality of communication.
PDR, P is defined as the ratio of total number of the received
Acknowledgements ACKs from destination and the total
number of generated packets by the source node (GPacks).
Mathematically, this is computed as in equation (1):
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ܲ ൌ ்௢௧௔௟ீ௉௔௖௞௦ (1)
1) Node scale effect on the network performance in
terms of packet delivery ratio and delay: Packets are
generated at each end node at a rate of 0.5 per second. The
round time is one minute which refers to the total duration
of transmission setup and continuous data processing phase.
Each end node will send one packet at a time to the sink.
The comparison between the three network sizes in terms of
packet delivery ratio and average delay is illustrated in Figs
4 and 5 respectively.
The PDR is 100% for a small network and decreased
gradually to about 80% for the network with N=30. The
delay increased, slowly between N=2 and N=10, but almost
doubled as the size was increased to 30.
2) The effect of sending technique on performance of a
scalable network: This experiment has been implemented
for two periodic sending techniques. The first is to send one
packet a time every 2 seconds and the second technique is
transmitting one block of 30 packets at a time every 1
minute (1 round time). These techniques applied CSMA/CA
method. As a result, each physical node will send 30 packets
per round for both cases. The average values of MAC layer
delay and PDR of the different sending modes with varied
node size were shown in Figures 6,7, and 8. It seems clear
from Figures 6 that in case of small network (2 nodes) the
PDR is the same (100%). Nevertheless, the periodic sending
technique with one block at a time for small network suffers
from collisions that produce more delay when sending one
block a time than one packet at a time for the same network
size as shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 7 demonstrates the strong
influence of data delivery mode on the average delay in
medium network. Therefore, sending one block of data at a
time produces higher delay than applying the other data
delivery technique for a scalable network especially in case
of large node size.
Figure 4. The packet delivery ratio with changing node size.
Figure 5. The Average delay value with changing node size.
Figure 6. Impact of delivery mode on the packet delivery ratio in three
network sizes.
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Figure 7. Impact of delivery mode on average delay in three network
sizes.
Figure 8. Impact of delivery mode on the average delay in small network.
3) Dynamic CSMA Mechanism: The results of this
analysis show that the periodic sending scheme suffers from
scalability issue. As an assumption, if the TDMA algorithm
is applied, the large network will suffer from high latency in
case of diverse traffic conditions with saturated or
unsaturated traffic for end sensor node. In a saturated
network, at the end of each transmission a node always has
a new packet available to transmit. A node in unsaturated
networks, can also be in an idle state, during which it is not
attempting to transmit a packet nor performing the
CSMA/CA algorithm. More specifically, in a traditional
TDMA node with unsaturated data will lead to worse
bandwidth utilization as well as incur delay due to an
unused time slot in case that there is no dense data to be sent
over the channel. In our work we assume different traffic
circumstances depending on variation in data temperatures
values for each end node. As an example, in an experiment
with 10 nodes, round time equal 1 minute the sensed data is
variable in each time (such as temperature). Each node
allocated time slot of 5 seconds, so in every round the total
frame time will equal to 50,000 ms (5000 ms * 10 nodes).
Total delay for Dynamic CSMA in first round equal to
39597 ms, hence the saved time is 10,403 (50000 – 39597).
Fig. 9 demonstrates total delay for Dynamic CSMA in first
round equal to 39597 ms, hence the saved time is 10,403
(50000 – 39597).
The BE value set up to zero to disable collision
avoidance since first iteration, and thus the waiting delay is
null because of free medium contention. An experimental
work has been achieved to implement the dynamic CSMA
which means that the amount of data captured in each end
node will be variable according to a specific rules
(temperature higher/less than a certain value depend on the
Static time division technique total slot time for 10 nodes = 50,000 ms
(5000(ms)/node)
Dynamic CSMA technique total slot time for 10 nodes (first round) =
39597 ms (less than 5000/node)
Figure 9. Total transmission time for static TDMA and dynamic CSMA during first round.
The dynamic time in the improved technique will depend
on the sensed data values. By way of example, diversity in
temperature values. Fig. 11 demonstrates overall
transmission delay during the four rounds interval. Fig. 10
demonstrates the mean and deviation of average delay in
Dynamic CSMA. The mean value is 39,359 ms which is less
than 50,000 ms in traditional one.
Figure 10. The standard deviation of average delay in dynamic CSMA.
Figure 11. Total transmission time for static TDMA and dynamic CSMA
within four rounds.
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application requirements) so that the channel allocated for
each end node will vary in each round. At the end of each
round the coordinator will send periodic request to every end
node. The analysis evaluation has been done within 4 rounds.
End node will initiate data transmission upon receiving data
requested packet. Before sending the last data packet to the
sink, the end node includes an indicator at the end of payload
to declare data transmission termination. In return, the
coordinator continues to issue a new data request to the other
end nodes.
V. CONCLUSION
Experimental trials have been used to investigate the
impact of different CSMA/CA parameters on the efficiency
of WSNs of various size using IEEE802.15.4 in non-beacon-
enabled mode. In the scenario considered, the packet
delivery ratio decreased, and delay increased gradually as the
number of contending nodes grew. A comparison between
traditional TDMA and new improved delivery technique
shows that MAC parameters can be improved by applying
the newly developed scheme especially in large networks.
This scheme could be applied in IoT environments to ensure
better system performance by decreasing latency and
maximizing packet delivery ratio to achieve increased
bandwidth utilization.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The corresponding authors are grateful to the
Engineering Department in Leicester University in United
Kingdom as well as the Higher Committee of Education
Development in Iraq for financially supporting the current
research.
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