MAC Protocols

Issues in Designing MAC Protocols

• Bandwidth efficiency

• Quality of service support

• Synchronization

• Hidden and exposed terminal problems

• Error-prone shared broadcast channel

• Distributed nature /Lack of central coordination

• Mobility of nodes
 Design Goals of a MAC Protocol (AHWN)
• The operation of the protocol should be distributed, with QoS support for real-time traffic.

• The access delay must be kept low.

• The available bandwidth must be utilized efficiently.

• Fair allocation (either equal allocation or weighted allocation) of bandwidth to nodes.

• Control overhead must be kept as low as possible.

• The protocol should minimize the effects of hidden and exposed terminal problems.

• The protocol must be scalable to large networks.

• Power control mechanisms in order to efficiently manage energy consumption of the nodes.

• It should try to use adaptive data rate control and directional antennas.

• For bandwidth reservations, the protocol should provide time synchronization among nodes.
 Classification of MAC Protocols

• MAC protocols are classified into several categories based on various criteria such as
initiation approach, time synchronization, and reservation approaches.

• Ad hoc network MAC protocols can be classified into three basic types:
 Contention-based protocols

 Contention-based protocols with reservation mechanisms

 Contention-based protocols with scheduling mechanisms

 Cont..

Classification of MAC protocols

 Cont..
Contention-Based Protocols: A node does not make any resource reservation a priori.

• Whenever it receives a packet to be transmitted, it contends with its neighbor nodes for
access to the shared channel.

• It cannot provide QoS guarantees to sessions since nodes are not guaranteed regular access to
the channel.

• It is also called random access protocols.

 Sender-initiated protocols (SIP): Packet transmissions are initiated by the sender node

 Receiver-initiated protocols: The receiver node initiates the contention resolution protocol.

• SIP: single channel sender-initiated protocol & Multi-channel sender initiated protocols
 Cont..
Contention-Based Protocols with Reservation Mechanism: They have mechanisms for
reserving bandwidth a priori.

• Ad hoc wireless networks sometimes may need to support real-time traffic, which requires QoS
guarantees to be provided.

• In contention-based protocols, nodes are not guaranteed periodic access to the channel (don’t
support real-time traffic).

• Synchronous Protocols: They require time synchronization among all nodes in the network, so
that reservations made by a node are known to other nodes in its neighborhood.

• Asynchronous Protocols: They do not require any synchronization among nodes in the network.
These protocols usually use relative time information for effecting reservations.
 Cont..
Contention-Based Protocols with Scheduling Mechanism: These protocols focus on packet
scheduling at nodes, and also scheduling nodes for access to the channel.

• All nodes are treated fairly and no node is starved of bandwidth.

• Scheduling-based schemes are also used for enforcing priorities among flows whose packets are
queued at nodes.

• Remaining battery power may also be used while scheduling nodes for access to the channel.
 Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA) Protocol

RTS: Request-to-send
CTS: Clear-to-send
 Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance of Wireless (MACAW)

RTS: Request-to-send
CTS: Clear-to-send
Distributed Packet Reservation Multiple Access (D-PRMA) Protocol

• All nodes having packets ready for transmission contend for the first minislot of each slot.
• The remaining (m−1) minislots are granted to the node that wins the contention.
• Also, the same slot in each subsequent frame can be reserved for this winning terminal until it completes its packet
transmission session.
 MAC Protocols for Sensor Networks

• MAC protocols in sensor networks must create a network infrastructure to establish

communication links among the thousands of randomly scattered sensors.

• Three basic kinds of MAC protocols used in sensor networks:

 Fixed Allocation MAC Protocols

 Demand-based MAC Protocols

 Contention-based MAC Protocols

 Cont..
Fixed Allocation MAC Protocols: Fixed Allocation MAC protocols assign dedicated communication
resources (time, frequency, or code) to each sensor node in advance.

• Avoid collisions and ensure reliable communication but may not efficiently handle dynamic traffic loads.

• Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA): Synchronization required (LEACH-MAC)

• Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA): Needs more bandwidth

• Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA): Each node gets a unique code to transmit simultaneously without
interference. (Complex processing)

• Works well in predictable traffic, collision free, and energy efficient (TDMA)

• Poor performance in dynamic traffic; wastage of resources in low-traffic conditions; bounded delay for
each node
 Cont..

Demand-based MAC Protocols: Allocate channel access dynamically based on the actual
communication needs of sensor nodes.

• These protocols adjust access based on traffic load, node requests, or event-driven
transmissions.

• They require the additional overhead of a reservation process.

• Variable rate traffic can be efficiently transmitted using demand-based MAC protocols.

• Improves energy efficiency, delay (latency), and adaptability in WSN.

• Polling-based MAC; Traffic-Adaptive MAC; and Event-Triggered MAC

 Cont..

Contention-based MAC Protocols: It involves random-access-based contention for the channel

when packets need to be transmitted.

• They are suitable for bursty traffic, but there is a possibility of collisions.

• No delay guarantees

• Not suitable for delay-sensitive or real-time traffic

 Self-Organizing MAC for Sensor Networks and Eavesdrop-and-Register

• SMACS and EAR are two protocols which handle network initialization and mobility support, respectively.

• In SMACS, neighbor discovery, channel assignment, and link organization take place simultaneously in a
completely distributed manner.

• A communication link between two nodes consists of a pair of time slots, at a fixed frequency.

• Power is conserved by turning off the transceiver during idle slots, and using a random wake-up schedule
during the network start-up phase.

• The EAR protocol enables seamless connection of nodes under mobile and stationary conditions.

• Mobile nodes eavesdrop on the control signals and maintain neighbor information.

• The mobile nodes assume full control over connections and can drop connections when they move away.

• Hence, mobility is made transparent to SMACS, since it is independently handled by EAR.

 Hybrid TDMA/FDMA

• A pure TDMA scheme minimizes the time for which a node has to be kept on, but the associated
time synchronization costs are very high.

• A pure FDMA scheme allots the minimum required bandwidth for each connection.

• The hybrid TDMA/FDMA scheme uses an optimum number of channels, which gives minimum
overall power consumption.

• If the transmitter consumes more power, a TDMA scheme is favored, since it can be switched off
in idle slots to save power.

• The scheme favors FDMA when the receiver consumes greater power since the receiver need not
expend power for time synchronization by receiving during the guard band between slots.
 S-MAC Protocol
• A sensor network–specific MAC from the University of California.

• The goal of the S-MAC protocol is to reduce energy waste caused by idle listening, collisions, overhearing, and
control overhead.

• Collisions: When a transmitted packet is corrupted it has to be discarded, and the re-transmissions increase
energy consumption.

• Overhearing: A node picks up packets that are destined to other nodes.

• Control packet overhead: Sending and receiving control packets consumes energy too.

• Idle listening: listening to receive possible traffic that is not sent.

• This is especially true in many sensor network applications. If nothing is sensed, nodes are in idle mode for most
of the time.

• Many measurements have shown that idle listening consumes 50–100% of the energy required for receiving.
 Cont..
• S-MAC tries to reduce the waste of energy from all the previously-discussed sources. In exchange it
accepts some reduction in both per-hop fairness and latency.

• Unlike traditional voice and data networks, a WSN node may have dramatically more data to send
than some other nodes.

• In this case fairness is not important as long as application-level performance is not degraded.

• An important feature of wireless sensor networks is the in-network data processing.

• MACAW is widely used in ad hoc wireless networks because of its simplicity and robustness to the
hidden terminal problem.

• The energy consumption using MACAW is very high when nodes are in idle mode. This is mainly due
to the idle listening
 Cont..

• Three major components of S-MAC:

 Periodic listen and sleep

 Collision and overhearing avoidance

 Message passing
 Cont..
Periodic Listen and Sleep:
• In many sensor networks, nodes are in idle for a long time if no sensing event happens.

• Given the fact that the data rate during this period is very low, it is not necessary to keep nodes
listening all the time.

• Each node goes to sleep for some time, and then wakes up and listens to see if any other node
wants to talk to it.

• During sleep, the node turns off its radio, and sets a timer to awake itself later.

• The duration of time for listening and sleeping can be selected according to different
application scenarios.
 Cont..
• If in each second a node sleeps for half second and listens for the other half, its duty cycle is reduced to
50%. So we can achieve close to 50% energy savings.

• S-MAC scheme requires periodic synchronization among neighboring nodes to remedy their clock drift.

• To reduce control overhead, we prefer neighboring nodes to synchronize together, i.e., they listen at the
same time and go to sleep at the same time.

• As a fact, not all neighboring nodes can synchronize together in a multi-hop network.

• Two neighboring nodes A and B may have different schedules if they each in turn must synchronize with
different nodes, C and D, respectively.
 Cont..
• Nodes exchange their schedules by broadcasting it to all its immediate neighbors. This ensures
that all neighboring nodes can talk to each other even if they have different schedules.

• If multiple neighbors want to talk to a node, they need to contend for the medium when the
node is listening.

• The node who first sends out the RTS packet wins the medium, and the receiver will reply with
a CTS packet.
 Cont..
Choosing and Maintaining Schedule: Before each node starts its periodic listen and sleep, it needs to
choose a schedule and exchange it with its neighbors. Each node maintains a schedule table.

• Synchronizer: The node first listens for a certain amount of time. If it does not hear a schedule from
another node, it randomly chooses a time to go to sleep and immediately broadcasts its schedule in a

SYNC message, indicating that it will go to sleep after t seconds.

• Follower: If the node receives a schedule from a neighbor before choosing its own schedule, it follows
that schedule by setting its schedule to be the same. We call such a node a follower. It then waits for a
random delay td and rebroadcasts this schedule, indicating that it will sleep in t−td seconds.

• If a node receives a schedule after it selects and broadcasts its own schedule, it adopts both schedules.
 Cont..
• Maintaining Synchronization: The listen/sleep scheme requires synchronization.

• Updating schedules is accomplished by sending a SYNC packet.

• The SYNC packet is very short, and includes the address of the sender and the time of its next sleep.

For a node to receive both

SYNC and data packets.

If a sender wants to send a SYNC

packet, it starts carrier sense when
the receiver begins listening.

If it has not detected any transmission

by the end of the time slot, it wins the
medium and starts sending its SYNC
packet at that time.
 Cont..
Collision and Overhearing Avoidance:
• S-MAC adopts a contention-based scheme for collision and overhearing avoidance.

• It is common that any packet transmitted by a node is received by all its neighbors even though
only one of them is the intended receiver.

• Since multiple senders may want to send to a receiver at the same time, they need to contend for
the medium to avoid collisions.

• RTS/CTS mechanism is adopted for collision avoidance.

• There is a duration field in a transmitted packet that indicates how long the remaining
transmission will be.

• So if a node receives a packet destined to another node, it knows how long it has to keep silent.
 Cont..
• All senders perform carrier sense before initiating a transmission.

• If a node fails to get the medium, it goes to sleep and wakes up when the receiver is free and
listening again.

• Overhearing: S-MAC tries to avoid overhearing by letting interfering nodes go to sleep after they
hear an RTS or CTS packet.

• Since DATA packets are normally much longer than control packets, the approach prevents
neighboring nodes from overhearing long DATA packets and the following ACKs.
 Cont..
Message Passing:

• How to efficiently transmit a long message in both energy and latency?

• Usually the receiver needs to obtain all the data units before it can perform in-network data processing or
aggregation.

• The disadvantages of transmitting a long message as a single packet is the high cost of re-transmitting the
long packet if only a few bits have been corrupted in the first transmission.

• If we fragment long message into small packets, it leads to large control overhead and longer delay.

• S-MAC: fragment the long message into many small fragments, and transmit them in burst.

• The message passing tries to put nodes into sleep state as long as possible, reducing switching overhead.

• Each data fragment and ACK packet also has the duration field. If a node wakes up or a new node joins in the
middle, it can properly go to sleep no matter if it is the neighbor of the sender or the receiver.