MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks in forest fire detection

Al-Habashneh, Al-Abbass Y. (2010) MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks in forest fire detection. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Power consumption, latency, and complexity are considered to be benchmarks for comparing Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). However, the importance of these elements varies according to the application. Furthermore, the reliability of the system is a more specific factor whose importance strongly depends on the application. The term reliability represents the ability of the system to generate authenticated data and transport this data. In this thesis, three MAC protocols are proposed for forest fire detection. Basically, two of these protocols are based on the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol with some modification to suit the forest fire detection application. These protocols are called Persistent CSMA (P-CSMA) and Per Hop Synchronization CSMA (PHS-CSMA). The third one is a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)-based protocol, called Sensor TDMA (S-TDMA). These three protocols are investigated and analyzed by simulation. Moreover, an analytical model is presented for the reliability analysis. Results show that there is no superior protocol which outperforms others in terms of power consumption, delay, reliability and complexity. However, a trade-off does exist. In terms of power consumption, S-TDMA outperforms other protocols but it is not the best in terms of delay, and it has the most complex implementation since a complete time synchronization is required over the entire cluster while PCSMA and PHS-CSMA do not require time synchronization between nodes. PHS-CSMA outperforms P-CSMA in terms of power and delay, but it is more complex since it needs a coordination between nodes to establish a temporary time synchronization at the transmission times. In terms of reliability, all protocols perform similarly. However, at high node failure rates, the presented protocols do not show a great data transport reliability performance. Therefore, route maintenance algorithms are proposed to enhance the reliability performance1 of the presented protocols. An analytical model is built to examine the reliability performance of the presented algorithm. Analytical results supported by simulation results show that the target is successfully achieved, where a near unity reliability is attained. Extra delay and power consumption are the price paid for this improvement in reliability.

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