Optimization of Power and Latency of Medium Access Control Protocol of Wireless Sensor Network

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs) used for continuous surveillance, a problem for monitoring the more critical data being transmitted infrequently is the extreme challenge of energy usage and latency requirements. Current MAC protocols often have high energy consumption due primarily to idle listening, collision, and excessive data transmission, and as a result, are not suitable for such uses. This paper proposes novel protocol to optimize energy consumption and transmission delays in WSNs used to monitor infrequent critical data. This protocol is named as OWuR-MAC i.e. ‘Optimized Wake-up Radio based Medium Access Control’. OWuR-MAC implements an event-driven wake-up strategy utilizing wake-up receivers so that devices can stay in low-power sleep mode until data transmission is necessary. Sensor nodes use wake-up receivers which allow them to remain at low-energy sleep times until there is a relevant data transmission which can wake them up. However, OWuR-MAC also dynamically modifies wake-up receiver sensitivity and transmission timing based on the characteristics of the networked activity and environmental conditions. The protocol is implemented and compared in the OMNeT++ simulation environment with two other state-of-the-art methods: Fully Asynchronous Wake-Up Radio MAC (FAWR-MAC) and Opportunistic Wake-Up MAC (OPWUM). The results of the simulation indicate OWuR-MAC achieved lower rates of energy consumption, lower latency, and higher packet delivery ratios than the other two protocols. Thus, OWuR-MAC is a strong candidate for providing energy-efficient low-latency WSNs for mission-critical surveillance.