Medium access layer for Wireless Sensor Networks

T.G.Venkatesh Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology

Issues in MAC protocols for WSN

Issues Energy efficiency Fairness of end to end flows Related work IEEE802.11 High energy consumption when the nodes are in the idle mode CSMA To improve the energy consumption by avoiding overhearing among neighboring nodes TDMA No contention-introduced overhead and collisions Not easy to manage the inter-cluster communication and interference Not easy to dynamically change its frame length and time slot assignment PAMAS Power off radio when not actively transmitting and receiving packet

Sensor MAC Requirements

High energy efficiency (High Throughput/energy Ratio) High channel utilization (High throughput) Low latency Reliability Scalability Robustness and adaptability to changes Channel conditions (highly time varying) Sensor node failure (energy depletion, environmental changes) High clock drift

MAC Energy Usage

Four important sources of wasted energy in WSN: Idle Listening
power) (consumes about 50 -100% of the

Overhearing (since RF is a broadcast medium) Collisions (Hidden Terminal Problem) Control Overhead (e.g. RTS/CTS or DATA/ACK)

Power Measurements

Motivation
Duty cycle: ratio between listen time to total listen sleep cycle Central idea: reduce the duty cycle by turning off the radio for part of the time Approaches:
TDMA Schedule contention periods

Medium Access Paradigms

Contention Based (CSMA)

Random-backoff and carrier-sensing Simple, no time synch, and robust to network changes High control overhead (for two-hop collision avoidance) High idle listening and overhearing overheads
Solve this by duty cycling

TDMA Based

Nodes within interference range transmit during different times, so collision free Requires time synch and not robust to changes. Low throughput and high latency even during low contention. Low idle listening and overhearing overheads
Wake up and listen only during its neighbor transmission

Existing MAC Protocols

Sensor-MAC (S-MAC) : Listen-sleep Timeout-MAC (T-MAC) : Activation event WiseMAC : Preamble Sampling

S-MAC
Main goal reduce power consumption Three major components:
Periodic sleep-listen Collision and overhearing avoidance Message passing

S-MAC Design
listen
Listen Period Sleep/Wake schedule synchronization with neighbours Receive packets from neighbours Sleep Period

sleep

listen

sleep

Turn OFF radio

Set timer to wake up later Transmission Send packets only during listen period of intended receiver(s) Collision Handling RTS/CTS/DATA/ACK

S-MAC Design
Schedules can differ, prefer neighbouring nodes to have same schedule
Node 1 Node 2
listen sleep listen listen sleep sleep listen sleep

Border nodes may have to maintain more than one schedule.

Schedule 1
Schedule 2

S-MAC Design
Maintaining Schedule
To update schedule by sending a SYNC packet periodically

S-MAC Design
Collision Avoidance Problem : Multiple senders want to talk Options: Contention vs TDMA Solution :Similar to IEEE 802.11 ad hoc mode (DCF)
Physical and virtual carrier sense Randomozed backoff time RTS/CTS for hidden terminal problem RTS/CTS/DATA/ACK sequence

S-MAC Design
Overhearing Avoidance Problem: Receive packets destined to others Solution : Sleep while neighbours talk Who should sleep
All immediate neighbors of sender and receiver

How long to sleep

The duration field in each packet informs the other nodes the sleep interval

S-MAC Design
Message Passing
Only one RTS packet and one CTS packet are used To avoid large control overhead and long delay ACK would be sent after each data fragment To avoid fragment loss or error To Prevent hidden terminal problem After the neighbor node hears the RTS and CTS, it will go to sleep for the time that is needed to transmit all the fragments (using the duration field)

Advantages/Disadvantages
Energy waste caused by idle listening is reduced by sleep schedules. Sleep and listen periods are predefined and constant which decreases the efficiency of the algorithm under

variable traffic load.

Timeout-MAC (T-MAC)
Proposed to enhance the poor results of S-MAC protocol under variable traffic load. Listen period ends when no activation event has occurred for a time threshold TA. Reduce idle listening by transmitting all messages in bursts of variable length, and sleeping between bursts. times out on hearing nothing.

S-MAC Vs T-MAC

The SMAC duty cycle ;The arrows indicate transmitted and received messages; note that the messages come closer.

Advantages/Disadvantages
Gives better result under variable load. Suffers from early sleeping problem node goes to sleep when a neighbor still has messages for it.

WiseMAC
All nodes defined to have two communication channels. Data channel uses TDMA

Control channel uses CSMA

Preamble sampling used to decrease idle listening time. Nodes sample the medium periodically to see if any data is going to arrive.

WiseMAC

Advantages/Disadvantages
Dynamic preamble length adjustment results in better performance. Conflict when one node starts to send the preamble to a node that is already receiving another nodes transmission where the preamble sender is not within range. Hidden terminal problem

Other MAC Protocols

SIFT :Event Driven TRAMA : Traffic Adaptive MAC, TDMA Based

TRAFFIC-ADAPTIVE MAC PROTOCOL TRAMA

Time is divided into random-access and scheduled-access (transmission) periods. The random-access period is used to establish two hop topology information and the channel access is contentionbased within that period.

Dynamic Sensor MAC

D MAC

WSN MAC Comparison

MAC Protocol
S-MAC

Type
CSMA, Contention -based

Adaptivity to Changes
Good

Advantages
Energy waste caused by idle listening is reduced by sleep schedules. Simplicity.

Disadvantages
Sleep and listen periods are predefined and constant, which decreases the efficiency of the algorithm under variable traffic load. Early sleeping problem.

T-MAC

CSMA, Contention based CSMA, Preamble based

Good

Gives better results under variable loads

WiseMAC

Good

Dynamic preamble length adjustment results in better performance under variable traffic conditions.

Decentralized sleep-listen scheduling results in different sleep and wake-up times for each neighbor of a node. Hidden terminal problem Without considering the transmissions and receptions, the duty cycle is at least 12.5 %, which is a considerably high value.

TRAMA

TDMA/CSMA

Good

Higher percentage of sleep time and less collision probability is achieved compared to CSMA based protocols.

SIFT

CSMA/CA, Contention Window-based

Good

Very low latency is achieved with many traffic sources.

Increased idle listening caused by listening to all slots before sending. System-wide time synchronization is needed for slotted contention windows.

Network Layer for Wireless Sensor Networks

T.G.Venkatesh Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology

Communication architecture of sensor networks Network layer:

Power efficiency is always an important consideration. Sensor networks are mostly data centric. Data aggregation is useful only when it does not hinder the collaborative effort of the sensor nodes. An ideal sensor network has attributebased addressing and location awareness.

Communication architecture of sensor networks

Several Network Layer Schemes for Sensor Networks

Communication architecture of sensor networks

Energy Efficient Routes

Maximum available power (PA) route: Route 2 Minimum energy (ME) route: Route 1 Minimum hop (MH) route: Route 3 Minimum PA node route: Route 3

Communication architecture of sensor networks

Interest Dissemination
Sinks broadcast the interest

Sensor nodes broadcast the advertisements

Attribute-based naming The areas where the temperature is over 70oF The temperature read by a certain node

Communication architecture of sensor networks

Data aggregation

Solve implosion and overlap Problem Aggregation based on same attribute of phenomenon Specifics (the locations of reporting sensor nodes) should not be left out

Communication architecture of sensor networks

Open research issues
New protocols need to be developed to address higher topology changes and higher scalability. New internetworking schemes should be developed to allow easy communication between the sensor networks and external networks.

Protocol Classification

(1)

Proactive First Compute all Routes; Then Route Reactive Compute Routes On-Demand Hybrid First Compute all Routes; Then Improve While Routing

Protocol Classification
Direct
(Fast Drainage; Small Scale)

(2)

Node and Sink Communicate Directly

Flat (Equal)
Random Indirect Route
(Fast Drainage Around Sink; Medium Scale)

Clustering (Hierarchical)
Route Through Distinguished Nodes

Protocol Classification

(3)

Unicast One-to-One Message Passing Multicast (actually Local Broadcast) Node-to-Neighbors Message Passing Broadcast Full-Mesh Source to Everyone

Protocol Classification

(4)

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy - LEACH (1) Protocol Highlights

Self-Organizing Adaptive Clustering Cluster-Heads elect themselves randomly Nodes die in random Stationary Sink Localized Coordination Data Fusion

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy - LEACH (2) Main Drawbacks Hot Spot Problem

(Nodes on a path from an eventcongested area to the sink may drain) Inadequate for Time-Critical Applications Stationary Sink Maybe Unpractical Basic Algorithm assumes any node can communicate with sink limited scale

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy - LEACH (3) Main Procedures

Works in Rounds, each with Set-Up (Short) and Steady-State (Long) Set-Up Phase - subdivided: Advertisement (I am a Cluster-Head) Cluster Set-Up (I am in your Cluster) Schedule Creation (This is your slot) Steady-State Phase: Data Transmission using TDMA

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy - LEACH (4) Main Procedures

Everyone uses the same channel Different clusters use different CDMA codes Code chosen in random Cluster-Head communicate with Sink Can be extended to Hierarchical Clustering

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy 1 - LEACH (5) Illustrations

Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy 1 - LEACH (6) Illustrations

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems

2 - PEGASIS

(1)

Protocol Highlights Token-Passing Chain-Based Nodes die in random Stationary Nodes and Sink Every node have a global network map Data Fusion Greedy chain construction

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems

2 - PEGASIS

(2)

Main Drawbacks Stationary Nodes Global Information Limited Scale: Information travels many nodes Assumes any node can communicate with sink

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems

2 - PEGASIS

(3)

Main Procedures: Greedy Algorithm Construct Chain Start at a node far from sink and gather everyone neighbor by neighbor Node i (mod N) is the leader in round i
Nodes passes token thru the chain to leader from both sides Each node fuse its data with the rest Leader transmit to sink

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems

2 - PEGASIS
Illustrations

(4)

Power-Efficient Gathering in Sensor Information Systems

2 - PEGASIS
Illustrations

(5)

Rounds Until Death

3 - SPIN

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(1)

Protocol Highlights
Network-wide Broadcast Limited by Negotiation and using Local Communication Flooding problems solved:
Implosion same data from many neighbors Detection of overlapping regions Excessive resources consumption (Blindness)

Needs only Localized Information

Data Fusion Two main protocols SPIN-PP & SPIN-BC

3 - SPIN

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(2)

Main Procedures Broadcast - Limited Scale every node handles O(n) messages Data is updated throughout network unnecessary in many cases Network lifetime - not clear High degree nodes = High power needs

3 - SPIN

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(3)

Main Procedures
SPIN-PP (Point-to-Point Communication) Data is described by meta-data ADV msg. Node has data sends ADV to neighbors If neighbor do not have data sends REQ Node responds by sending the DATA This process continues around the network Nodes may aggregate their data to ADV In a Lossy Network ADV may be repeated periodically and REQ if not answered

3 - SPIN

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(4)

Main Procedures
SPIN-BC (Local Broadcast Communication)
ADV and DATA sending like PP (but in B.C.) Since only one REQ answer is needed, any node waits a random interval and B.C. REQ only if none was received yet. The rest like SPIN-PP

3 - SPIN
Illustration s

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
ADV Node with data

Node with data advertises to all its neighbors

3 - SPIN
Illustration s

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
REQ Node with data

Neighbor requests for data and it is sent

3 - SPIN
Illustrations

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
DATA Node with data

Node with data advertises to all its neighbors

3 - SPIN
Illustrations

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
ADV Node with data

Receiving node sends ADV to neighbors

3 - SPIN
Illustrations
Already has data (or dead)

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
Node with data

REQ

Receiving neighbors requests for data.

3 - SPIN
Illustrations

Sensor Protocol for Information via Negotiation

(5)
Node with data

DATA

Receiving node sends DATA to neighbors

Thank you