A localized de-synchronization algorithm for periodic data reporting in IEEE 802.15.4 WSNs

Energy efficiency is typically the most important requirement in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, in many application domains, additional requirements such as reliability, timeliness and scalability need to be considered as well. As emphasized in previous studies, the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol has severe limitations in terms of performance and energy efficiency, which make it unsuitable for many application scenarios. In this paper we propose an asynchronous adaptive algorithm for periodic data reporting that leverages the 802.15.4 Beacon-Disabled Mode but de-synchronizes the access times of different sensor nodes, so as to minimize the collision probability. Unlike previous de-synchronization schemes, the proposed approach only relies on local information. Simulation results show that our asynchronous algorithm can provide a performance very similar to that of a TDMA scheme but, unlike TDMA, it does not requires any synchronization among nodes.