An adaptive energy-aware MAC frame size scheme in wireless delay-tolerant sensor networks

Wireless Delay-Tolerant Sensor Networks often experience high unpredicted latency, dynamic wireless channel status and a lack of end-to-end connections. During the rare transmission opportunity in which connections can be found, the sensors seek the best strategies for improving transmission throughput and for reducing energy consumption. An effective way of improving transmission efficiency is to adjust the MAC frame size. This paper presents an efficient energy-aware MAC frame size adjustment scheme, which adapts the frame size to wireless channel conditions and possibility of collisions. Improved data throughput and energy consumption are the main matrices for evaluating transmission performance. Our simulation results show that this scheme can improve transmission time and significantly reduce energy consumption using adaptive frame size adjustment.