An energy efficient event detection protocol for infrastructure and earthwork condition monitoring using Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are uniquely suited for monitoring environmental events because they are extremely small in size, inexpensive and require no wiring for data transport which means that they are easy to install in most locations and applications. However, the use of WSNs is restricted by one engineering limitation: short lifetime. This paper develops an Adaptive Detection-driven Ad hoc Medium Access Control (ADAMAC) protocol in order to support energy efficient event detection of WSNs during infrastructure and earthwork stability monitoring. ADAMAC limits the Data Forwarding Interruption problem which causes increased end-to-end delay and energy consumption in multi-hop sensor networks. ADAMAC uses early warning alarms to dynamically adapt the sensing intervals and communication periods of a sensor according to the likelihood of any new events occurring. Results demonstrate that compared to previous protocols such as SMAC, ADAMAC dramatically reduces end-to-end delay while still limiting energy consumption during data collection and dissemination.