An UWB-based Location-Aided MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we propose an UWB-based location-aided MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks, named LA-MAC. Current MAC proposal is closely coupled to the IEEE 802.15.4a physical layer and it is based on the Impulse-Radio (IR) paradigm. LA-MAC exploits the precise position location provided by the UWB transmission technique in order to assess the channel conditions more accurately and enhance the network performance by wisely allowing simultaneous data transmissions to occur. The produced interference estimation model in conjunction with the distributed admission control scheme, leads to better interference predictions and blocking assessments and thus improves channel spatial reuse efficiency and data throughput. The proposed MAC is evaluated and compared to traditional MAC protocols, like the 802.15.4 that does not take advantage of the UWB peculiar characteristics, showing a significant improvement in terms of network throughput, energy consumption and average MAC delay.