Title :
A Directional MAC Protocol with Deafness Avoidance for UWB Wireless Sensor Networks
Author :
Karapistoli, Eirini ; Gragopoulos, Ioannis ; Tsetsinas, Ioannis ; Pavlidou, Fotini-Niovi
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Elec. & Comp. Eng., Aristotle Univ. of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Abstract :
Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is a key solution for wireless connectivity, characterized by ultralow power consumption and a good degree of robustness to interference. Evidence of its importance, is its recent use in the IEEE 802.15.4a standard. UWB technology with joint consideration of directional antennas can benefit when compared to classical omnidirectional antennas from the energy conservation viewpoint, which is of fundamental concern when it comes to wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, exploiting directionality requires new approach in the design of a medium access control (MAC) protocol to be applied. In this work, idle nodes continuously rotate their receiving beams over 360 degrees until a predefined preamble trailer is detected. The resulting scheme is a directional ultra-wideband MAC protocol, named DU-MAC, which deals effectively with the problem of deafness and the problem of determination of neighbors´ location. Simulation based studies would demonstrate the effectiveness of our protocol in many critical parameters.
Keywords :
access protocols; directive antennas; ultra wideband communication; wireless sensor networks; IEEE 802.15.4 standard; UWB wireless sensor networks; deafness avoidance; directional MAC protocol; energy conservation viewpoint; medium access control protocol; omnidirectional antennas; ultra wideband network; Access protocols; Deafness; Directional antennas; Energy consumption; Interference; Media Access Protocol; Robustness; Ultra wideband technology; Wireless application protocol; Wireless sensor networks;
Conference_Titel :
Communications, 2009. ICC '09. IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Dresden
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-3435-0
Electronic_ISBN :
1938-1883
DOI :
10.1109/ICC.2009.5198593