Energy-Aware TDMA-Based MAC for Sensor Networks

Abstract

Networking unattended sensors is expected to have a significant impact on the efficiency of many military and civil applications. Sensors in such systems are typically disposable and expected to last until their energy drains. Therefore, energy is a very scarce resource for such sensor systems and has to be managed wisely in order to extend the life of the sensors for the duration of a particular mission. In this chapter, we present a novel approach for energy-aware management of sensor networks that maximizes the lifetime of the sensors while maintaining desired quality of service attributes related to sensed data delivery. The approach is to dynamically set routes and arbitrate medium access to minimize energy consumption and maximize sensor life. We give a brief overview of the energy-aware routing and a description of a Time-Division-Multiple-Access (TDMA) -based Medium AccessControl (MAC) protocol. We discuss algorithms for assigning time slots for the communicating sensor nodes. The approach is evaluated through simulation. Simulation results have confirmed the effectiveness of our new approach.

Work has been partially done while the authors were at Honeywell International Inc.