Enhanced and Efficient Multilayer MAC Protocol for M2M Communications

Abstract

The main challenges in wireless communication is collision caused by simultaneous data transfer between two nodes on the same channel. In this context, medium access control (MAC) protocols have been improved primarily to try to avoid such collisions by helping nodes to decide when and how to access support. To meet the demand of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, traditional protocols must be adapted to achieve remarkable energy efficiency; several requirements have to be respected when developing a MAC design for M2M system so as to meet the requirements of multiple and heterogeneous scenarios. In this article, we propose a multilayer MAC protocol with adaptive duty cycle that minimizes the energy consumed on idle listening via sending all messages in a variable active period according to load of traffic and returns to sleep mode. Simulation results illustrate that the proposal protocol outperforms other traditional MAC protocols in terms of energy consumption and average delay.