Achieving efficiency and flexibility with differentiated random access in smart home and building area networks

This paper presents an analytic characterization of a random access strategy in low data-rate networking with the provision for service differentiation. Its utility lies in the context of certain emerging network types, such as those enabling smart homes and buildings, where a set of conflicting requirements makes efficient medium access control (MAC) a challenging task. A substantive portion of the traffic from the associated applications are event-driven, which necessitates random access, while the number of sensing and actuator nodes comprising the networks can be fairly large. This challenge to provide scalable random access exacerbate further by the need to facilitate service differentiation for the higher priority critical traffic. In this context, an analysis of near-optimal channel access efficiency is laid out keeping level of service differentiation flexible with consideration of a carrier sense multiple access based MAC scheme used in low data-rate networking. Numerical results with extensive simulations that correspond to quantitative analyses are produced.