Improving many-to-one traffic flowing in multi-hop 802.15.4 WSNs using a MAC-level fair scheduling

Collecting data from a multitude of sensors is very common in multi-hop wireless sensor network (WSN) applications; the typical many-to-one traffic consists of routes forming a reverse tree rooted in the sink. In such a scenario, both congestion and unfairness may significantly impact the network performance. This is particularly true with IEEE 802.15.4-based WSNs since this standard, tailored to low data rate scenarios, is not effective in handling many-to-one as well as data-intensive traffics. This paper proposes a novel, lightweight, distributed algorithm focused on enhancing fairness in a 802.15.4-based WSN. It can be efficiently implemented in e.g. ZigBee devices without requiring any modification to the 802.15.4 MAC itself. Results extracted from simulations demonstrate how this algorithm enhances network performance.