18CSE451T - Wireless Sensor

Networks

Unit – III
Syllabus

Overview-Wireless Mac Protocols -Characteristics of MAC

protocols in Sensor networks -Contention free MAC Protocols
-MAC Protocols -Characteristics -Traffic Adaptive Medium Access
-Y-MAC -Low energy Adaptive Clustering - Contention based
MAC Protocols , Sensor MAC ,Timeout MAC and pattern MAC
MAC protocols in ContikiOS simulator ,Nullmac in Contiki
simulator ,CSMA in Contiki simulator
Roadmap
Overview
Wireless MAC protocols
Carrier Sense Multiple Access
Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA) and MACAW
MACA By Invitation
IEEE 802.11
IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee
Characteristics of MAC Protocols in Sensor Networks
Energy Efficiency
Scalability
Adaptability
Low Latency and Predictability
Reliability
Contention-Free MAC Protocols
Contention-Based MAC Protocols
Hybrid MAC Protocols

2
 Medium Access Control

In most networks, multiple nodes share a communication medium for

transmitting their data packets
The medium access control (MAC) protocol is primarily responsible for
regulating access to the shared medium
The choice of MAC protocol has a direct bearing on the reliability and
efficiency of network transmissions
due to errors and interferences in wireless communications and to
other challenges
Energy efficiency also affects the design of the MAC protocol
trade energy efficiency for increased latency or a reduction in
throughput or fairness

3
 Overview

Responsibilities of MAC layer include:

decide when a node accesses a shared medium
resolve any potential conflicts between competing nodes
correct communication errors occurring at the physical layer
perform other activities such as framing, addressing, and flow control
Second layer of the OSI reference model (data link layer) or the IEEE 802
reference model (which divides data link layer into logical link control and
medium access control layer)

4
 MAC Protocol Categorization

Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)

Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
Carrier sense multiple access/ collision detection (CSMA)
Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA), Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance
5
for Wireless (MACAW)
 Contention-Free Medium Access

Collisions can be avoided by ensuring that each node can use its allocated
resources exclusively
Examples of fixed assignment strategies:
FDMA: Frequency Division Multiple Access
the frequency band is divided into several smaller frequency bands
the data transfer between a pair of nodes uses one frequency band
all other nodes use a different frequency band
TDMA: Time Division Multiple Access
multiple devices to use the same frequency band
relies on periodic time windows (frames)
– frames consist of a fixed number of transmission slots to
separate the medium accesses of different devices
– a time schedule indicates which node may transmit data during a
certain slot

6
 Contention-Free Medium Access

Examples of fixed assignment strategies (contd.):

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access
simultaneous accesses of the wireless medium are supported using
different codes
if these codes are orthogonal, it is possible for multiple
communications to share the same frequency band
forward error correction (FEC) at the receiver is used to recover from
interferences among these simultaneous communications
Fixed assignment strategies are inefficient
it is impossible to reallocate slots belonging to one device to other
devices if not needed in every frame
generating schedules for an entire network can be a taunting task
these schedules may require modifications every time the network
topology or traffic characteristics in the network change

7
 Contention-Free Medium Access
Dynamic assignment strategies: allow nodes to access the medium on demand
polling-based protocols
a controller device issues small polling frames in a round-robin
fashion, asking each station if it has data to send
if no data to be sent, the controller polls the next station
token passing
stations pass a polling request to each other (round-robin fashion) using
a special frame called a token
a station is allowed to transmit data only when it holds the token
reservation-based protocols
static time slots used to reserve future access to the medium
e.g., a node can indicate its desire to transmit data by toggling a
reservation bit in a fixed location
these often very complex protocols then ensure that other
potentially conflicting nodes take note of such a reservation to
avoid collisions

8
 Contention-Based Medium Access

Nodes may initiate transmissions at the same time

requires mechanisms to reduce the number of collisions and to recover
from collisions
Example 1: ALOHA protocol
uses acknowledgments to confirm the success of a broadcast data
transmission
allows nodes to access the medium immediately
addresses collisions with approaches such as exponential back-off
to increase the likelihood of successful transmissions
Example 2: slotted-ALOHA protocol
requires that a station may commence transmission only at predefined
points in time (the beginning of a time slot)
increases the efficiency of ALOHA
introduces the need for synchronization among nodes

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 Contention-Based Medium Access

Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA)

CSMA with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)
sender first senses the medium to determine whether it is idle or
busy
– if it is found busy, the sender refrains from transmitting packets
– if the medium is idle, the sender can initiate data transmission
CSMA with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA)
CSMA/CD requires that sender aware of collisions
instead, CSMA/CA attempts to avoid collisions in the first place

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Hidden and Exposed Terminal Problems

Hidden-terminal problem
senders A and C are able to reach B, but cannot overhear each o t h e
rʼ s signals
it is possible for A and C to transmit data to B at the same time, causing
a collision at B, without being able to directly detect this collision
Exposed-terminal problem
C wants to transmit data D, but decides to wait because it overhears an
ongoing transmission from B to A
B ʼ s transmission could not interfere with data reception at
C

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 Carrier Sense Multiple Access

Nodes first sense the medium before they begin a transmission (reduces
number of collisions)
Non-persistent CSMA
node is allowed to immediately transmit data once medium is idle
if the medium is busy, the node performs a back-off operation
wait for a certain amount of time before attempting to transmit again
1-persistent CSMA
node wishing to transmit data continuously senses the medium for
activity
once the medium is found idle, the node transmits data immediately
if a collision occurs, the node waits for a random period of time before
attempting to transmit again

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 Carrier Sense Multiple Access

p-persistent CSMA
node continuously senses the medium
node transmits data with a probability p once the medium becomes idle
delays transmission with a probability 1 − p
random back-off values are either continuous values in the case of un-
slotted CSMA or multiples of a fixed slot size in slotted CSMA
CSMA/CA (CSMA with Collision Avoidance)
nodes sense the medium, but do not immediately access the channel
when it is found idle
instead, a node waits for a time period called DCF interframe space
(DIFS) (Distributed coordination function (DCF)) plus a multiple of a
slot size
in case there are multiple nodes attempting to access the medium, the
one with the shorter back-off period will win

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 Carrier Sense Multiple Access

Example:
node A waits for DIFS + 4 ∗ s (where s represents the slot size), while
node Bʼ back-off is DIFS + 7 ∗ s
once node A begins with its transmission, node B freezes its own back-
off timer and resumes the timer after node A completes its transmission
plus another period of DIFS
once node Bʼs Back-off timer expires, it can also begin its
transmission

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 MACA and MACAW

Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA)

dynamic reservation mechanism
sender indicates desire to send with ready-to-send (RTS) packet
intended receiver responds with clear-to-send (CTS) packet
if sender does not receive CTS, it will retry at later point in time
nodes overhearing RTS or CTS know that reservation has taken place
and must wait (e.g., based on the size of data transmission)
address hidden terminal problem and reduces number of collisions
MACA for Wireless LANs (MACAW)
receiver responds with acknowledgment (ACK) after data reception
other nodes in receiverʼs range learn that channel is available
nodes hearing RTS, but not CTS do not know if transmission will occur
MACAW uses data sending (DS) packet, sent by sender after
receiving CTS to inform such nodes of successful handshake

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 MACA By Invitation

In MACA-BI, destination device initiates data transfers by sending a Ready

To Receive (RTR) packet to the source
source then responds with the data message
Compared to MACA, MACA-BI reduces overhead
increases the theoretical maximum throughput
depends on the destination knowing when to receive data
Source nodes can use an optional field within the data message to indicate
the number of queued messages
providing the destination with an indication that more RTS packets will
be required

16
 IEEE 802.11

Published in 1999 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

(IEEE)
specifies the physical and data link layers of the OSI model for wireless
connections
Often referred to as Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)
certification given by Wi-Fi Alliance, a group that ensures compatibility
between hardware devices that use the 802.11 standard
Wi-Fi combines concepts found in CSMA/CA and MACAW, but also offers
features to preserve energy
Two modes of operation
Point Coordination Function (PCF) mode
communication among devices goes through a central entity called
an access point (AP) or base station (BS): managed mode
Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) mode
devices communicate directly with each other: ad-hoc mode
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 IEEE 802.11
IEEE 802.11 is based on CSMA/CA
before a node transmits, it first senses the medium for activity
the node is allowed to transmit, if the medium is idle for at least a time
period called the DCF interframe space (DIFS)
otherwise the device executes a back-off algorithm to defer
transmission to a later time
this algorithm randomly selects a number of time slots to wait and stores
this value in a back-off counter
for every time slot that passes without activity on the network, the
counter is decremented and the device can attempt transmission when
this counter reaches zero
if activity is detected before the counter reaches zero, the device waits
until the channel has been idle for a period of DIFS before it continues
to decrement the counter value

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 IEEE 802.11
After a successful transmission
receiver device responds with an acknowledgment after waiting for a
time period called the short interframe space (SIFS)
the value of SIFS is smaller than the value of DIFS to ensure that no
other device accesses the channel before the receiver can transmit its
acknowledgment
Once a node A makes a reservation using RTS and CTS control messages
another neighboring node B, overhearing the RTS message, must
refrain from accessing the medium until node A ‘s transmission
has been completed and acknowledged
however, this would mean that node B has to continuously sense the
medium to detect when it becomes idle again

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 IEEE 802.11

Instead, Aʼ s RTS message carries the size of the data it will

transmit
allowing node B to estimate how long the transmission will take and to
decide whether to enter a low-power sleep mode
some neighboring nodes may only overhear CTS (but not RTS),
therefore, the data size is also carried in the CTS message
using the data size information, neighboring nodes set a network
allocation vector (NAV) that indicates how long the medium will be
unavailable
reduces the need for continuously sensing the medium, allowing a
node to save power

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IEEE 802.11

21
 IEEE 802.11

PCF mode
access point (AP) coordinates channel access to ensure collision-free
communication
periodically broadcasts a beacon to its client devices (includes list of
devices with data pending at AP)
during contention-free period, AP transmits these packets to its client
devices
AP can also poll client devices to allow them to initiate data transfers
AP uses a wait period called the PCF interframe space (PIFS)
PIFS is shorter than DIFS, but longer than SIFS
ensures that PCF traffic has priority over traffic generated by devices
operating in the DCF mode, without interfering with control
messages in the DCF mode such as CTS and ACK

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 IEEE 802.11

Focus of IEEE 802.11 is on providing fair access to the medium

with support for high throughput and mobility
since devices spend a large amount of time listening to the medium and
collisions occur frequently, this standard incurs large overheads,
including significant energy costs
Energy consumption problem
IEEE 802.11 offers a power saving mode (PSM) for devices
operating in the PCF mode
devices can inform the AP that they wish to enter a low-power sleep
mode using special control messages
these devices wake up periodically to receive beacon messages from
the AP to determine if they should stay awake to receive incoming
messages
saves energy, but only works in the infrastructure mode and it is not
specified when or how long devices should sleep

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 ZigBee
Before 802.15.4, ZigBee Alliance worked on low-cost communication technology
for low data rates and low power consumption
IEEE and ZigBee Alliance joined forces and ZigBee has become the
commercial name for the IEEE 802.15.4 technology
Star mode:
communication via the Personal Area Network (PAN) coordinator
synchronized mode (beacon-enabled)
PAN coordinator periodically broadcasts beacons for synchronization
and management
slotted channel access: device performs random backoff before channel
is sensed
– if no activity, node waits until next slot and senses channel again until
no activity has been detected for two consecutive slots
– if activity, backoff procedure is repeated
unsynchronized mode: device access channel immediately when no activity
is detected during the first initial backoff time

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 ZigBee

Peer-to-peer mode:
devices are free to communicate directly with each other
but they still must associate with the PAN coordinator before they can
participate in peer-to-peer communication
Data transfer between the device and its PAN coordinator is always initiated
by the device
allows a device to determine when data is transferred and to maximize
its energy savings
when a device wants to send data to the PAN coordinator, it can use
the previously described channel access method
the PAN coordinator transmits data intended for a device only after
the device explicitly requested such a transmission
in both cases, optional acknowledgments can be used to let the PAN
coordinator or device know that the transmission was successful

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 IEEE 802.15.4 and ZigBee

Challenges:
standard does not clearly define the operation of the peer-to-peer
approach
in large WSNs, it is unlikely that all devices will be able to use the same
PAN coordinator
standard does allow communication among PAN coordinators, but this
again is not well defined

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Characteristics of MAC Protocols in WSNs

Most MAC protocols are built for fairness

everybody should get an equal amount of resources
no one should receive special treatment
In a WSN, all nodes cooperate to achieve a common purpose, therefore
fairness is less of a concern
Wireless nodes are mostly concerned with energy consumption
Sensing applications may value low latency or high reliability over fairness

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 Energy Efficiency

Sensor nodes must operate using finite energy sources, therefore MAC
protocols must consider energy efficiency
Common technique: dynamic power management (DPM)
a resource can be moved between different operational modes such as
active, idle, and asleep
for resources such as the network, the active mode can group together
multiple different modes of activity, e.g., transmitting and receiving
Periodic traffic models are very common in WSNs
significant energy savings can be obtained by putting a device into a
low-power sleep mode
fraction of time a sensor nodes spends in active mode is called the duty
cycle

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 Energy Efficiency

RFM TR1000 RFM TR3000 MC13202 CC1000 CC2420

Data rate (kbps) 115.2 115.2 250 76.8 250

Transmit current 12mA 7.5mA 35mA 16.5mA 17.4mA
Receive current 3.8mA 3.8mA 42mA 9.6mA 18.8mA
Idle current 3.8mA 3.8mA 800μA 9.6mA 18.8mA
Standby current 0.7μA 0.7μA 102μA 96μA 426μA

Characteristics of typical radios used by state-of-the-art sensor nodes

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 Energy Efficiency

Reasons for energy inefficiency

idle listening
inefficient protocol designs (e.g., large packet headers)
reliability features (collisions requiring retransmissions or other error
control mechanisms)
control messages to address the hidden-terminal problem
choice of modulation scheme
choice of transmission rate
overemitting

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 Scalability

Many wireless MAC protocols have been designed for use in infrastructure-
based networks
access points or controller nodes arbitrate access to the channel and
perform some centralized coordination and management functions
Most wireless sensor networks rely on multi-hop and peer-to-peer
communications without centralized coordinators
MAC protocols must be able to allow for efficient use of resources without
incurring unacceptable overheads, particularly in very large networks
MAC protocols based on CDMA have to cache a large number of code
(may be impractical for resource-constrained sensor devices)
WSNs are not only constrained in their energy resources, but also in their
processing and memory capacities
Therefore, MAC protocols should not impose excessive computational
burden should not require too much memory to save state information

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 Adaptability

A key characteristic of a WSN is its ability to self-manage

adapt to changes in the network
including changes in topology, network size, density, and traffic
characteristics
A MAC protocol for a WSN should be able to gracefully adapt to such
changes without significant overheads
This requirement generally favors protocols that are dynamic in nature
protocols that make medium access decisions based on current
demand and network state
Protocols with fixed assignments (e.g., TDMA with fixed-size frames and
slots) may incur large overheads due to adaptations of such assignments
that may affect many or all nodes in the network

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 Low Latency and Predictability

Many WSN applications have timeliness requirements

sensor data must be collected, aggregated, and delivered within certain
latency constraints or deadlines
example: wildfire detection (sensor data must be delivered to monitoring
stations in a timely fashion to ensure timely responses)
MAC protocol design
choice of frame size and slot allocations in TDMA-based protocols may
lead to large delays
in contention-based protocols, nodes may be able to access the
wireless medium sooner (than TDMA), but collisions and the resulting
retransmissions incur delays
choice of MAC protocol can affect how predictable the experienced
delay is (expressed as upper latency bounds)
some contention-based MAC protocols allow the theoretical possibility
of starvation

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 Reliability

Common requirement for WSNs

MAC protocol design affects reliability
responsible for detecting and recovering from transmission errors and
collisions

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 Contention-Free MAC Protocols

Concept:
allow only one sensor node to access the channel at any given time
thereby avoiding collisions and message retransmissions
assuming a perfect medium and environment
i.e., no other competing networks or misbehaving devices exist that
could otherwise cause collisions or even jam a channel
Contention-free protocols allocate resources to individual nodes to ensure
exclusive resource access by only one node at any given time
Exposes a number of desirable characteristics
node knows exactly when it has to turn on its radio
during all other times, radio can be turned off to preserve energy
fixed slot allocations impose upper bounds on delay
difficult to design schedules for large networks
difficult to handle changes in topology, density, traffic load

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 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

TRAMA is an example of a contention-free MAC protocol with the goal to

increase network throughput and energy efficiency (compared to TDMA)
It uses a distributed election scheme to determine when nodes are allowed
to transmit
based on information about the traffic at each node
avoids assigning slots to nodes with no traffic to send (increased
throughput)
allows nodes to determine when they can become idle and do not have
to listen to the channel (increased energy efficiency)

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 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

TRAMA assumes a time-slotted channel, where time is dived into:

periodic random-access intervals (signaling slots)
scheduled-access intervals (transmission slots)
Random-access intervals
Neighbor Protocol (NP) is used to propagate one-hop neighbor
information among neighboring nodes
nodes join a network by transmitting during a randomly selected slot
packets transmitted during these slots are used to gather
neighborhood information by carrying a set of added and deleted
neighbors
in case no changes have occurred, these packets serve as “keep-
alive” beacons
NP allows nodes to obtain consistent two-hop topology information

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 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

Random-access intervals (contd.)

Schedule Exchange Protocol (SEP) establishes and broadcasts actual
schedules (i.e., allocations of slots to a node)
each node computes a duration SCHEDULE_INTERVAL
– represents the number of slots for which the node can announce
its schedule to its neighbors
– this duration depends on the rate at which the nodeʼs
applications can produce packets
at time t, the node then computes the number of slots within [t, t+
SCHEDULE_INTERVAL] for which it has the highest priority among
its two-hop neighbors
the node announces the selected slots and the intended receivers
using a schedule packet
the last slot in this schedule is used to announce the next schedule
for the next interval

39
 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

Random-access intervals (contd.)

Schedule Exchange Protocol (SEP) (contd.)
example:
– a nodeʼs SCHEDULE_INTERVAL is 100 slots
– the current time (slot number) is 1000
– a possible slot selection for interval [1000, 1100] for this node
could be 1011, 1021, 1049, 1050, and 1093
– during slot 1093, the node broadcasts its new schedule for
interval [1093, 1193]
list of intended receivers in the schedule packet is implemented as a
bitmap
– length of a bitmap is equal to the number of one-hop neighbors
» each bit in the bitmap corresponds to one particular receiver
ordered by its identities
» every node can determine the receiver address based on the
bitmap and its list of neighbors 40
 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

Random-access intervals (contd.)

Schedule Exchange Protocol (SEP) (contd.)
slot selection is based on the nodeʼs priority at time t
– uses a pseudo-random hash of the concatenation of the nodeʼs
identity i and t:

– node can indicate which slots it gives up, allowing other nodes to
claim these unused slots
a node can determine its state for any given time slot t based on its
two-hop neighborhood information and the announced schedules
– node i is in the transmit (TX) state if it has the highest priority and
if it has data to send
– node i is in the receive (RX) state if it is the intended receiver of
the transmitter during slot t
– otherwise, the node can be switched into the sleep (SL) state
41
 Traffic-Adaptive Medium Access

Summary
compared to CSMA-based protocols
reduces the probability of collisions
increases the sleep time and energy savings
unlike standard TDMA approaches
TRAMA divides time into random-access and scheduled-access
intervals
during the random-access intervals
– nodes are awake to either transmit or receive topology
information
– the length of the random-access interval affects the overall duty
cycle and achievable energy savings of a node

42
 Y-MAC

Y-MAC uses TDMA-based medium access but for multiple channels

Divides time into frames and slots
each frame contains a broadcast period and a unicast period
every node must wake up at the beginning of a broadcast period
nodes contend for access to the medium during this period
if there are no incoming broadcast messages, each node turns off its
radio awaiting its first assigned slot in the unicast period
each slot in the unicast period is assigned to only one node for
receiving data
Y-MAC uses a receiver-driven model
can be more energy-efficient under light traffic conditions, because each
node samples the medium only in its own receive time slots
particularly important for radio transceivers, where the energy costs for
receiving are greater than for transmitting (e.g., due to sophisticated
despreading and error correction techniques)
43
 Y-MAC

Medium access in Y-MAC is based on synchronous low power listening

The contention window (at beginning of each slot) resolves contention
between multiple senders
a node wishing to send data sets a random wait time (back-off value)
within the contention window
after this wait time, the node wakes up and senses the medium for
activity for a certain amount of time
if the medium is free, the node sends a preamble until the end of the
contention window to suppress competing transmissions and the
receiver wakes up at the end of the contention window to wait for
packets in its assigned slot
if the medium receives no signal from any of its neighboring nodes, it
turns off the radio and returns to the sleep mode

44
 Y-MAC

Unicast period
messages are initially exchanged on the base channel
at the beginning of its receive slot
a receiver switches its frequency to the base channel
the node that won the medium in the contention window also uses
the base channel to transmit its packet
the receiver acknowledges this packet (if the acknowledgment
request flag was set in the packet)
Broadcast period
every node tunes to the base channel
the potential senders take part in the contention process described
above

45
 Y-MAC

Every node polls the medium only during broadcast time slots and its own
unicast receive time slots
makes this approach energy-efficient
however, under heavy traffic conditions, many unicast messages may
have to wait in the message queue or are dropped due to the limited
bandwidth reserved for the receiving node
as a consequence, Y-MAC uses a channel hopping mechanism to
reduce packet delivery latency

46
 Y-MAC

After receiving a packet during its time slot on the base channel, the
receiving node hops to the next channel and sends a notification
it can continue to receive packets on the second channel
contention for the medium in the second channel is resolved as before
At the end of this slot, the receiving node can decide to hop again to
another channel
until reaching the last channel or
until no more data is being received
The hopping sequence generation algorithm
determines the actual hopping sequence among the available channels
should guarantee that there is only one receiver among one-hop
neighbors on any particular channel

47
 Y-MAC

Summary
Y-MAC uses slot assignments (such as TDMA)
communication is receiver-driven to ensure low-energy consumption
i.e., a receiver briefly samples the medium during its slot and returns
to the sleep mode if no packets arrive
uses multiple channels
to increase the achievable throughput
to reduce delivery latency
main drawbacks of the Y-MAC approach:
has the same flexibility and scalability issues as TDMA (i.e., fixed
slot allocations)
requires sensor nodes with multiple radio channels

48
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

The LEACH protocol combines TDMA-style contention-free communication

with a clustering algorithm for wireless sensor networks
a cluster consists of a single cluster head and any number of cluster
members, which only communicate with their cluster head
clustering is a popular approach for sensor networks
facilitates data aggregation and in-network processing at the cluster
head
reduces the amount of data that needs to be transmitted to the base
station
LEACH operates in rounds consisting of two phases:
A setup phase phase
A steady-state phase

56
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Setup phase
cluster heads are determined and communication schedules within
each cluster are established
since the cluster head is responsible for coordinating cluster activity and
forwarding data to the base station, its energy requirements will be
significantly larger compared to other sensor nodes
therefore, LEACH rotates the cluster head responsibility among sensor
nodes to evenly distribute the energy load
every sensor i elects itself to be a cluster head with a certain
probability Pi(t)
In a network with N nodes and a desired number of cluster heads of
k, the probabilities can be chosen to satisfy:

57
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

There are various approaches to choose Pi (t), e.g.,:

This approach uses an indicator function Ci (t) to determine whether node i

has been a cluster head in the r mod(N/k) previous rounds
Only nodes that have not been cluster heads recently are candidates for the
cluster head role, in order to evenly distribute the cluster head responsibility
(and energy overhead) among all nodes

58
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

This approach does not consider the actual amount of energy available to
each node
An alternative approach to determining the probability of becoming a cluster
head can be used:

Ei(t) is node iʼs actual current energy and Etotal(t) is the sum of the energy
levels of all nodes
a disadvantage of this approach is that every node must know (or
estimate) Etotal(t)

59
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Once a sensor node has determined that it will serve as cluster head for the
next round, it informs other sensor nodes of its new role by broadcasting an
advertisement message (ADV) using a non-persistent CSMA protocol
Every sensor node joins a cluster by selecting the cluster head that can be
reached with the smallest amount of transmit energy, based on received
signal strength of the ADV messages from the cluster heads
Joining is achieved by transmitting a join-request (Join-REQ) message to
the chosen cluster head using CSMA
The cluster head establishes a transmission schedule for its cluster and
transmits this schedule to each node in its cluster

60
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Steady-state phase
a sensor node communicates only with the cluster head
it is allowed to transmit data only during its allocated slots (indicated
by the schedule received from the cluster head)
the responsibility of the cluster head is to forward sensor data
originating at one of its sensor nodes to the base station
in order to preserve energy:
each cluster member uses the minimum required transmit power to
reach the cluster head
each cluster member turns off the wireless radio between its
designated slots
the cluster head remains awake at all times
to receive sensor data from its cluster members
to communicate with the base station

61
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Sensor nodes use the direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technique
to limit the interference among clusters, while intra-cluster communication is
contention-free using TDMA-style frames and slots
Communication occurring in one cluster can still interfere with
communication in another cluster
Each cluster uses a spreading sequence that is different from the spreading
sequences used in neighboring clusters
Another reserved sequence is used for communication between cluster
heads and the base station
Communication between cluster heads and base station is based on CSMA
Before a cluster head transmits data, it first senses the channel to see if
there is an ongoing transmission using the same spreading code

62
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

LEACH-C
variation of LEACH protocol
relies on the base station to determine the cluster heads
during setup phase, each sensor node transmits its location and
energy levels to the base station
based on this information, the base station determines the cluster
heads and informs the cluster heads of their new role
other sensor nodes can then join clusters using join messages as
described in the original LEACH protocol

63
Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Summary
LEACH relies on a variety of techniques to reduce energy consumption
minimum transmit energy
avoiding idle listening of cluster members
LEACH attempts to obtain contention-free communication
schedule-based communication
DSSS
intra-cluster communication is contention-free and interferences among
clusters are avoided
communication between the cluster heads and the base station is still
based on CSMA
assumes that all nodes are able to reach the base station (affects the
scalability of this protocol; can be addressed using multi-hop routing or
by implementing a hierarchical clustering approach)

64
 Contention-Based MAC Protocols

These protocols do not rely on transmission schedules, instead they require

other mechanisms to resolve contention when it occurs
The main advantage of contention-based techniques is their simplicity
compared to most schedule-based techniques
schedule-based MAC protocols must save and maintain schedules or
tables indicating the transmission order
most contention-based protocols do not require to save, maintain, or
share state information
this also allows contention-based protocols to adapt quickly to changes
in network topologies or traffic characteristics
However, they typically result in higher collision rates and overheads due to
idle listening and overhearing (overheads usually refer to additional bits in a
packet or additional packets such as control packets)
They may also suffer from fairness issues (i.e., some nodes may be able to
obtain more frequent channel accesses than others)

70
 Sensor MAC

The goal of the S-MAC protocol is

to reduce unnecessary energy consumption
while providing good scalability and collision avoidance mechanism
S-MAC adopts a duty-cycle approach
nodes periodically transition between a listen state and a sleep state
each node chooses its own schedule, although it is preferred when
nodes synchronize their schedules such that nodes listen or sleep at the
same time
nodes using the same schedule are considered to belong to the same
virtual cluster (but no real clustering takes place)
all nodes are free to communicate with nodes outside their clusters

75
 Sensor MAC

All nodes are free to communicate with nodes outside their clusters
Nodes periodically exchange their schedules with their neighbors using
SYNC messages (every node knows when any of its neighbors will be
awake)
If node A wants to communicate with a neighbor B that uses a different
schedule, A simply waits until B is listening and then initiates the data
transfer
contention for the medium is resolved using the RTS/CTS scheme
In order to choose a schedule, a node initially listens to the medium for a
certain amount of time
if this node receives a schedule from a neighbor, it chooses this
schedule as its own and this node becomes a follower
the node broadcasts its new schedule after a random delay td to
minimize the possibility for collisions from multiple new followers

76
 Sensor MAC

Nodes can adopt multiple schedules if a node receives a different schedule

after it has broadcast its own schedule
it then adopts both schedules
If a node does not hear a schedule from another node
it determines its own schedule
broadcasts this schedule to any potential neighbors
and this node becomes a synchronizer (in that other nodes will begin to
synchronize themselves with it)

77
 Sensor MAC

S-MAC divides a nodeʼs listen interval further into

a part for receiving SYNC packets
a part for receiving RTS messages
Each part is further divided into small slots to facilitate carrier sensing

78
 Sensor MAC

A node trying to send a SYNC or RTS message randomly selects a time

slot within the SYNC or RTS part of the interval, respectively
senses the carrier for activity from when the receiver begins listening to
the selected slot
if no activity has been detected, it wins the medium and begins
transmission
Contention for the medium is addressed using collision avoidance based on
RTS/CTS handshakes (S-MAC adopts a contention-based approach)
when a node hears an RTS or CTS and concludes that it cannot
transmit or receive at the same time, it can go to sleep to avoid wasting
energy caused by overhearing

79
 Sensor MAC

Summary
S-MAC is a contention-based protocol
utilizes the sleep mode of wireless radios to trade energy for throughput
and latency
collision avoidance is based on RTS/CTS (which is not used by
broadcast packets, thereby increasing the collision probability)
duty cycle parameters (sleep and listen periods) are decided
beforehand and may be inefficient for the actual traffic characteristics in
the network

80
 Timeout MAC

If there is only little traffic, S-MAC can actually waste energy because the
listening period of S-MAC is of fixed duration
On the other hand, if traffic is heavy, the fixed duration may not be large
enough
Therefore, the T-MAC protocol is a variation of S-MAC that uses an active
period that adapts to traffic density
Nodes wake up during the beginning of a slot to listen very briefly for activity
and return to the sleep mode when no communication has been observed
When a node transmits, receives, or overhears a message, it remains
awake for a brief period of time after completion of the message transfer to
see if more traffic can be observed
this brief timeout interval allows a node to return to the sleep mode as
quickly as possible
the end effect is that a nodeʼs awake times will increase with the heavier
traffic and will be very brief if traffic is light

81
 Timeout MAC

To reduce potential collisions, each node waits for a random period of time
within a fixed contention interval before the medium is accessed

82
 Timeout MAC

Once a node hears a CTS, it knows that another node won the medium
This node then stays awake until the end of the transmission, which can be
observed by overhearing the acknowledgment (ACK) sent by node B
This event initiates the beginning of the next contention interval and node C
will have an opportunity to transmit its data if it wins the medium

In figure, assume that messages flow from top to bottom

node A sends only to node B, node B sends to node C
every time node C wants to send a message to node D, C must contend
for the medium
C may lose to node B (B may transmit an RTS before C does) or
C may lose to node A (C overhears a CTS transmitted by node B)
while node C stays awake after overhearing node Bʼs CTS message, its
intended receiver (node D) is not aware of Cʼ s intention to transmit data
and therefore returns to the sleep mode after TA has expired
83
 Timeout MAC

Early sleeping problem

possible solution: future-request-to-send technique
a node with pending data can inform its intended receiver by
transmitting a future-request-to-send (FRTS) packet immediately
after overhearing a CTS message
node D, upon receiving the FRTS message, knows that node C will
attempt to send data to it and will therefore remain active
however, sending an FRTS message immediately after CTS could
interfere with node Bʼ s reception of node A ʼs data
therefore, Node A first sends a dummy message called Data-Send
(DS) to delay the transmission of the actual data
– DS has the same size as FRTS
– DS can collide with FRTS at node B, which is of no consequence
since it does not contain any useful information

84
 Timeout MAC
Summary
T-MACʼs adaptive approach allows it to adjust a nodeʼs sleep and
awake intervals based on the traffic load
nodes send messages as bursts of variable length and sleep between
such bursts to conserve energy
both S-MAC and T-MAC concentrate message exchanges to small
periods of time, resulting in inefficiencies under high traffic loads
intended receivers are kept awake using messages that indicate future
transmissions, which can significantly increase the idle listening times
(and energy consumption) of nodes

85
 Pattern MAC

The PMAC protocol is another example of a TDMA style protocol, but it

adapts its sleep schedules on the basis of its own traffic and the traffic
patterns of its neighbors
Compared to S-MAC and T-MAC, PMAC further reduces energy costs of
idle listening by allowing devices to turn off their radios for long durations
during periods of inactivity

Nodes use patterns to describe their tentative sleep and awake times
a pattern is a string of bits, each bit representing a time slot
a node plans to sleep: bit is 0
a node plans to awake: bit is 1

86
 Pattern MAC

While patterns are only tentative, schedules represent the actual sequence
of sleep and awake times
format of a pattern is always 0m1 where m = 0, 1, . . . , N − 1 and N time
slots are considered to be a period (example: pattern 001 and N=6)
value of m (number of leading zeros) is an indicator of traffic load
around the node
a small value indicates heavy traffic
a large value indicates light traffic
every nodeʼs pattern during the first period is 1 (m=0), i.e., every node
assumes a heavy traffic load should be awake at all times

87
 Pattern MAC

If a node does not have any data to send during the first slot, then it uses
this as an indicator that the traffic around it is potentially light (pattern
becomes 01)
The node continues to double the sleep interval every time it has no data to
send (i.e., doubling the number of zeros; allowing it to sleep longer)
This process is continued until a predefined threshold is reached, then the
number of zeros is increased linearly
If there is no data for node i to send, the following sequence of patterns will
be generated:
1, 01, 021, 041, . . . , 0δ1, 0δ01, 0δ021, 0δ031, . . . , 0N−11
Whenever a node has data to send, the pattern is immediately reset to 1,
allowing the node to wake up quickly and to handle the traffic load

88
 Pattern MAC

While a pattern is only a tentative sleep plan, patterns are used to derive
actual sleep schedules
A node broadcasts its own pattern at the end of a period during a time
interval called the Pattern Exchange Time Frame (PETF)
the PETF is divided into a sequence of brief slots where the number of
slots is set to the maximum number of neighbors a node could have
these slots are accessed using CSMA, i.e., collisions can occur
If a node does not receive a pattern update from one of its neighbors, the
node simply assumes the neighborʼs pattern remains unchanged

89
 Pattern MAC

Once a node has received the patterns from its neighbors, it determines its
own schedule, where each slot can be used for one of three possible
operations
1. if the neighbor has advertised a 1 for that slot, a node wakes up and
transmits a message to a neighbor
2. if a node has advertised a 1, but has no data to send, the slot is used to
listen
3. if none of these two conditions holds, the node sleeps

90
 Pattern MAC

Summary
PMAC provides a simple mechanism to build schedules that adapt to
the amount of traffic in a neighborhood
when traffic loads are light, a node is able to spend considerable
amounts of time in the sleep mode, thereby preserving energy
however, collisions during the PETF prevent nodes from receiving
pattern updates from all neighbors, while other nodes may have
received these updates
leads to inconsistent schedules among nodes in a neighborhood,
which can cause
– further collisions
– wasted transmissions
– unnecessary idle listening

91
 Summary

The choice of a medium access protocol has a substantial impact on the

performance and energy-efficiency of a WSN
MAC protocols should also be designed to accommodate changes in
network topology and traffic characteristics
Latency, throughput, and fairness among competing nodes determined or
affected by the characteristics of the MAC layer

Protocols based on transmission schedules

collision-free
resource-inefficient
may require well synchronized nodes throughout the network
difficult to adapt to changing topologies

127
 Summary

Protocols that let nodes compete for access to the medium

more flexible (easily accommodate changing network topologies)
require less overhead
not collision-free
must possess features that allow them to recover from collisions
network utilization may suffer when collisions occur frequently

128
 Introduction

▪ Several MAC duty-cycle protocols have been proposed during the last
decade
to
▪ address specific WSNs requirements and constraints such as a
▪ low energy consumption linked to battery operated nodes

▪ Radio Duty-Cycle (RDC) MAC protocols try to reduce the energy consumption
by allowing a node to keep its radio-transceiver off most of the time.
▪ This allow a node to avoid to keep the radio on unnecessarily, i.e when not involved in
any transmission
▪ Idle listening is used to solve such problem in which RDC MAC forces node to switch its
transceiver between short active(listen) periods and long inactive (sleep) periods
ContikiMAC

▪ ContikiMAC is a radio duty cycling protocol that uses periodical wake-ups to

listen for packet transmissions from neighbors.
▪ If a packet transmission is detected during a wake-up,
▪ the receiver is kept on to be able to receive the packet.
▪ When the packet is successfully received, the receiver sends a link layer
acknowledgment.
▪ To transmit a packet, a sender repeatedly sends its packet until it receives a link
layer acknowledgment from the receiver Figure 1
▪ Packets that are sent a broadcasts do not result in link layer acknowledgments.
▪ Instead, the sender repeatedly sends the packet during the full wake-up interval
▪ to ensure that all neighbors have received it. Figure 2
ContikiMAC- Figure 1

Radio on
D

Data frame
Sender D A
D
D
DA ACK frame
Receiver DA

Channel check Transmission detected

ContikiMAC broadcast-Figure 2
ContikiMAC Implementation

▪ Contiki real-time timers (rtimer)

▪ to schedule its periodic wake-ups to ensure a stable behavior even if many
underlying processes are running.
▪ The real-time timers preempt any Contiki process at the exact time at which they
are scheduled.
▪ The ContikiMAC wake-up mechanism runs as a protothread
▪ that is scheduled by a periodic real-time
timer.
▪ This protothread performs the periodic wake-ups
and implements the fast sleep optimization.
ContikiMAC Implementation-cont’

▪ Transmissions are driven by an ordinary Contiki process:

▪ If a wake-up is scheduled to occur when the radio is
busy during a transmission,
▪ the wake-up timer schedules a new wake-up after another wake-up interval
without performing the wake-up.
▪ phase-lock mechanism is implemented as a separate module from ContikiMAC
▪ To allow other duty cycle like X-MAC to use it .
▪ The phase-lock mechanism maintains a list of neighbors and their wake-up
phases
ContikiMAC Implementation-cont’

▪ ContikiMAC transmission logic records the time of each packet transmission.

▪ When a link layer acknowledgment is received,
▪ it notifies the phase-lock module with the transmission time of the last packet.
▪ this time is used as an approximation of the wake-up phase of the receiver
▪ Before starting a transmission,
▪ the ContikiMAC transmission logic calls the phase-lock module to check if it has a
recorded wake-up phase of the intended receiver.
▪ If so,
▪ the phase-lock code queues the packet to be transmitted and
▪ sets a callback timer (ctimer) at the time of the expected wake-up of the receiver.
▪ ContikiMAC will then resume the transmission when the callback occurs.
ContikiMAC Implementation-cont’

▪ The transmission will then be significantly shorter than

a normal transmission,
▪ because it occurs just before the neighbor is expected to be awake.
▪ Reducing the length of the transmission thus reduces radio congestion.
Two types of MAC protocols in ContikiOS:
• nullmac (core/net/mac/nullmac.c) and
• csma (core/net/mac/csma).

The first one is a simple pass-through protocol that simply calls the
appropriate RDC functions.
And the second one implements addressing, sequence number and
retransmissions.

CSMA protocol keep a list of packets to each of the neighbors and calculate
statistics such as number of retransmissions, collisions, deferrals, etc.
Even though the name, CSMA mean Carrier-Sense Medium Access, the
implementation in ContikiOS does not rely on the carrier sensing, because the
medium access is performed by RDC protocol.
 MAC Drivers

• Contiki provides two MAC drivers, CSMA and NullMAC

• CSMA is the default mechanism.
• MAC layer receives incoming packets from the RDC layer and uses the
RDC layer
to transmit packets
• If the RDC layer or the radio layer detects a radio collision

• The mac will retry later

• CSMA mechanism is currently the only MAC layer that retransmits packets
if a collision is detected. The most commonly used are
• ContikiMAC,

• CSMA

• NullRDC

• ContikiMAC provides a very good power efficiency but is somewhat tailored for the
802.15.4 radio and the CC2420 radio transceiver
References
:
• Fundamentals of Wireless Sensor Networks:
Theory and Practice Waltenegus Dargie and
Christian Poellabauer © 2010 John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.

• https://anrg.usc.edu/contiki/index.php/MAC_
protocols_in_ContikiOS
Thank You!!