Minimum energy and latency MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor network consists of sensor nodes having limited resources. Energy saving is very important to increase the life time of these networks. In this paper, we propose Minimum Energy and Latency MAC (MELM) protocol for wireless sensor networks. MELM uses dual frequency radio setup inspired by STEM and LEEM to minimize the energy consumption and the latency in a multi-hop environment. Both LEEM and STEM protocols squander energy and increase latency because of overhearing, over-transmission and packet collisions. MELM eliminates these problems by maintaining a scheduling table in all nodes having logical 2-hop distance from the receiver node and by using advance channel reservation mechanism. MELM eradicates the hidden terminal and the exposed terminal problems, which is a key advantage, by maintaining a 2-hop receiver centric scheduling table. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.