2012 Second International Conference on Instrumentation & Measurement, Computer, Communication and Control

Implementation of Medium Access Control Protocol to Improve Quality of

Service in Wireless Sensor Network

Fan Zeming, Fu Dianyu, Guo Yue

The School of Automation
Northwestern Polytechnical University
Xi’an 710129, PR China
fudianyu@163.com

Abstract̅ This paper proposes WTRP-S , a Medium Access
Control (MAC) protocol based on WTRP and for wireless
sensor networks. It guarantees QoS and controls the energy
consumption which is required in wireless sensor networks.
The protocol let the node shut down the wireless
communication module when no data is sent, which will not
affect token passing. The experiment compares the
performance of WTRP-S , WTRP and IEEE802.15.4 MAC in
the same network, and shows that WTRP-S provides a better
QoS and is more suitable for energy-limited wireless sensor
network.
Keywords-medium access control; wireless sensor network;
quality of service; wireless token ring protocol
I. INT RODUCT ION
In wireless sensor network, because of problems such
as the hidden terminal and the partially connection of
network topology, the opportunity of the competition
between the nodes is not equal. When the channel load
becomes heavy, the throughput of some nodes will decline
sharply; at the time the node will wait for a long time in
order to access channel, which make it difficult for the
network to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) [1, 2].
However, for a wireless channel which is not a reliable
transmission medium, it is not enough to guarantee QoS
just by the queue and routing technology, and the data link
layer must provide some QoS guarantee [3].
There main ly are two modes of the Medium Access
Control (MA C) protocol often used for wireless sensor
network: Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) and
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) [4]. TDMA can
effectively avoid the interference between nodes,
guarantee QoS of the network, and effectively execute the
sleep mode. But it requires time synchronization and high
quality of the hardware, is sensitive to the network changes,
and only apply to the network in which the topology
structure is stable; MAC protocol based on CSMA is not
sensitive to the network changes, can apply to the network
in which the topology structure changes constantly. But
under heavy network traffic, packets have a higher chance
of collision, and there would be difficulty in guaranteeing
QoS of the network.
Mustafa Ergen and Duke Lee of the University of
Californ ia, Berkeley, put forward a MAC protocol on
wireless link: Wireless Token Ring Protocol (WTRP) [3]
[5], which has three main advantages: Collision Avoidance,
Scalability and the uniformity of energy consumption
among nodes. But nodes must keep the wireless module in
receiving state in order to receive their token at any time,
or the token ring would consider nodes lost and rebuild the
token, which increases the burden and stability of the
network, and make it difficult to effectively guarantee
energy consumption of nodes. This paper proposes a new
wireless token ring protocolüWTRP-Sensor (WTRP-S),
based on WTRP, which can provide QoS and reduce
energy consumption. The simu lation results show that the
protocol can guarantee QoS and let the node shut down the
wireless communication module in order to save more
energy in the network with heavy data traffic. The overall
energy consumption is reduced to achieve the requirement
of wireless sensor network.
II. WTRP-S PROT OCOL
A. Algorithm Overview
According to the clustering algorithms, the network
builds several token rings on which each node has its own
upstream node and subsequent node. When the node
receives the token sent by the upstream node, it starts to
send data within a specified time, and then passes the
token to its subsequent node. Every time the time spent by
nodes in sending data exceeds the prescribed time, the
sending will be stopped and the token is passed to the
subsequent node. And so on, all nodes on the same token
ring take turn to enjoy the same wireless medium
according to the order of receiving the token. The wireless
communication module would be opened only when nodes
on the token ring have data to send, and when nodes shut
down the wireless communication module token passing
would not be interrupted and the token would be passed to
the next node that has data to send and would not be rebuilt,
which is the greatest feature of the protocol.
B. Key Issues
1) The Structure of Token Frame
This paper designs a wireless token frame format for
WTRP-S according to the frame structure of WTRP-S
protocol, shown in Figure 1.

Supported by Graduate Starting Seedfund of Northwestern

Polytechnical University (Z2011068)

978-0-7695-4935-4/12 $26.00 © 2012 IEEE 1154

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DOI 10.1109/IMCCC.2012.275
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 Bit
for waiting for the response window is divided into several
0 N time slots in intervals of the length of “receiving the token
0 N-1 response”. When the node that waits for sending data
BYTE
Ă Ă receives the token frame, it compares its sequence number
1 FC
0 NON+1
to Seq in the token, and sends the response token frame
6 RA within the corresponding time slot.
0 NON
3 SOAN
X NON-1 A B C
4 Seq
Ă Ă
2 NON
X 2 F E D
4 GenSeq
X 1

X 0
Figure 3. T oken Ring Network

Figure 1. Frame Structure For examp le, as shown in Figure 3, A is the owner of
the token ring, B, C, D, E and F jo in token ring in turn, and
their corresponding Self-Seq is 1,2,3,4 and 5. If D leaves
In the figure, the control field (FC) of the frame is used token ring, NON of token ring will beco me 5, and SOAN
to indicate the type of packets, such as common token, the will be
one for inviting nodes to join and the one for joining
response, and so on; token ring address (RA) is the address N N-1 Ă 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

of token ring that the token belongs to, and is used to 0 0 Ă 0 1 1 0 1 1 1

distinguish different token rings; NON represents the total

number of nodes on token ring; Seq represents the
sequence number of nodes which send the token in token
ring, and the value is 0~NON-1; GenSeq starts with zero
and is progressively increased by the token generator after
finishing one round of token passing; the state of the token
ring node (SOAN) is a field for bit address, of which every
bit represents a node on token ring, and the “ 1 ” indicates
that the node is at the corresponding location of token ring,
the “ 0 ” indicate the opposite. The field plays a very
important role on token passing and the shutting of the
communication module, and the specific direction is
explained below.
2) Connection Manager
Each node is equipped with a connection manager
which is used to control and manage the passing and
maintenance of the token. A management list is built in
each node, which is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 4. SOAN Structure
B sends Seq as the Self-Seq (1 in the example ) after
finishing transmitting data, and SOAN is the token shown
in the figure above. E receives the token and finds Seq as 1,
and its Self-Seq is 4, while there are t wo 1 fro m bit 2 to bit
4 in SOAN, so E knows it should send the response in the
second time slot of the response window. If in the first
time slot the token (C) is responded to by some node, E
will not wait and sleep for a period a node spend in holding
the token, then will wait for its token; if in the first time
slot the token is responded to by no node, E will send the
response in the second time slot and process the data traffic.
Only the one that has data to send wait for the token,
the passing can be finished by sending the token for just
once, and the time each node holds the token for is limited,
which guarantees QoS and the energy consumption.

Alternate
Other Ring 1 Other Ring 2 ĂĂ
Token Ring
Current
Now-RA Self-Req Last Gen
Token Ring
Figure 2. Connection Manager
In the figure, Now-RA is the address of the current
token ring, RA in the token; Self-Seq is the sequence
number of the node on token ring, and is allocated when
the node joins token ring, representing the sequence of the
node in token ring; Last-Gen is GenSeq in the token
obtained by the node last time, and how many rounds the
node sleeps for can be known by comparing Last-Gen to
the token obtained by the node this time; otherRing is other
token monitored by nodes.
3) Token Passing
After that the token ring is built, the node that has no
data to transmit shuts down the wireless communication
module, and the node that has data to transmit waits for its
token. The upstream node, after its finishing sending the
token, waits for receiving response of the node within a
duration for waiting for the response window. The duration
4) Access Management
When a node needs to join a token ring, it will open
and monitor the wireless communication module. If it
receives a token frame of invitation, it will respond to the
invitation. If the node is allowed to join, it will set data of
its node manager. Now-RA is RA in the token, Self-Seq is
the first bit that is not 1 in SOAN, and Last Gen is GenSeq.
The wireless communication module will be shut down if
no data is transmitted.
5) Recovery Mechanism
When a node needs to leave a token ring, it waits for
the right to transmit at first. Once the right to transmit is
obtained, the bit of Self-Seq in SOAN of the token frame is
set to 0 and the token is passed, then data of its connection
manager is set to 0. As shown in figure 2, the third bit in
SOAN of the token frame is set to 0 when D leaves token
ring.
When a node on token ring fails (energy depletion or
fault, etc), the owner of token ring will find that the node
doesn’t respond in the Nth round of token passing (N is
time a node fails for), and the bit in SOAN of the token
frame will be set to 0. So, other nodes can join the void
space to fill the vacancy of the time slot, and QoS will not

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 be affected by the failure of the node. If the failure of the 5
x 10
4

node is misjudgment and the node returns to normal after NODE1

4.5
N rounds, it will find GenSeq > Last Gen+N in the token NODE2
NODE3
4
frame, then it will know that it should re-join token ring,
which will not interfere with normal token passing.

(Bit)
3.5

Ӵ䕧᭄᥂䞣˄bit˅
3

Throughput
C. Simulation Results and Analysis 2.5

In the simulat ion, the Physical Layer uses 2.4 GHz 2

channels of IEEE802.15.4 [6], the bit rate as 250kbps and 1.5

the technology of the quadrature modulation of HEX. 1
There are three nodes each of which has 45000 bits data to
0.5
transmit. They start transmitting at 56ms, 106ms and
166ms. MAC protocol is WTRP-S, WTRP and 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
IEEE802.15.4. The throughput of three nodes with WTRP- time(ms)
S is showed in Figure 5.
Figure 7. IEEE802.15.4
4
x 10
5
It can be seen that the throughout of nodes with WTRP
NODE1
4.5
NODE2
and WTRP-S is relat ively stable even if all the nodes
4 NODE3 transmit data at the same t ime. While the throughout of
nodes with IEEE802.15.4 MAC protocol is not stable and
3.5
Throughput (Bit)
Ӵ䕧᭄᥂䞣˄bit˅

it decline obviously in the case of large task. Meanwhile,

3 to finish the same task, the time they spend is:
2.5 IEEE802.15.4 MAC > WTRP-S > WTRP. WTRP-S
protocol spends more time than WTRP protocol because of
2
the sleep mode of WTRP-S protocol.
1.5

1
Because WTRP require that nodes keep opening the
wireless communication module, it will consume huge
0.5
energy and have no comparability. The experiment
0 compare between WTRP-S and IEEE802.15.4 MAC
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
time (ms) protocol, shown in Figure 8.
6
Figure 5. WT RP-S x 10
8

WTRP-S
The throughput of three nodes with WTRP is showed 7 802.15.4
in Figure 6.
Consumption (nJ)

6
4
Energy㛑䞣⍜㗫˄nj˅

x 10
5 5
NODE1
4.5 NODE2 4
NODE3
4
3
Throughput (Bit)

3.5
Ӵ䕧᭄᥂䞣˄bit˅

3 2

2.5
1

2
0
1.5 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
time(ms)
1

0.5

0 Figure 8. Comparison of Energy Consumption

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
time(ms)
It can be seen that WTRP-S control the energy
consumption and the transmission time better when the
Figure 6. WT RP
task of data is busy in the network, wh ich achieves the
The throughput of three nodes with IEEE802.15.4 is requirement of wireless senor network.
showed in Figure 7.
D. Conclusion
This paper combining with WTRP protocol proposes a
new protocol algorithmüWTRP-S on QoS and the energy
consumption in wireless senor network. As shown in the

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 simulation, WTRP-S guarantees QoS and achieves the
sleep of nodes, thus the new protocol is more suitable for
the characteristic of WSN and can improve overall
performance of network.
A CKNOWLEDGMENT
We are grateful to the editor and the anonymous
reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments and
suggestions.
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