Altruistic Backoff: Collision Avoidance for Receiver-Initiated MAC Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks. (21st May 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fafoutis, Xenofon; Orfanidis, Charalampos; Dragoni, Nicola
• Other Names: Verikoukis Christos Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: International journal of distributed sensor networks. (2014)
• Publication Date: 2014-05-21
• Subjects: Sensor networks -- Periodicals; Intelligent agents (Computer software) -- Periodicals; Multisensor data fusion -- Periodicals; 681.2
• DOI: 10.1155/2014/576401
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1550-1329

Abstract

Abstract : In receiver-initiated medium access control (MAC) protocols for wireless sensor networks, communication is initiated by the receiver node which transmits beacons indicating its availability to receive data. In the case of multiple senders having traffic for a given receiver, such beacons form points where collisions are likely to happen. In this paper, we present altruistic backoff (AB), a novel collision avoidance mechanism that aims to avoid collisions before the transmission of a beacon. As a result of an early backoff, senders spend less time in idle listening waiting for a beacon, thus saving significant amounts of energy. We present an implementation of AB for Texas Instruments' eZ430-rf2500 sensor nodes and we evaluate its performance with simulations and experiments.