Towards estimating lifetime of ad hoc wireless networks

Abstract

Ad hoc wireless networks possess highly constrained energy resources. Even the energy aware protocols for ad hoc networks do not consider all the characteristics of the underlying batteries. Hence, they fail to efficiently utilize the available energy. Thus, a mechanism is required to measure the efficiency of the protocols of ad hoc networks, in terms of the network lifetime. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no reported work till date for analyzing the lifetime of the ad hoc networks for various protocols. This paper primarily provides a novel generalized analytical model for estimating lifetime of ad hoc networks, in the presence of the following two kinds of MAC protocols: (i) reservation-based TDMA protocols and (ii) a specific class of CSMA protocols that try to follow a pattern, such as a round-robin scheduling, for packet transmission. We prove through analytical and simulation studies that energy awareness is crucial in deciding the performance of the MAC protocols. © 2006 Springer-Verlag.