BLAM: an energy-aware MAC layer enhancement for wireless adhoc networks

In wireless adhoc networks, channel and energy capacities are scarce resources. However, the design of the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol leads to an inefficient utilization of these resources. We introduce BLAM, a new battery level aware MAC protocol, which is developed from an energy-efficiency point of view to extend the useful lifetime of an adhoc network. We modify the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol to enable BLAM to tune the random deferring time for fresh and collided data packets dynamically, based on the node´s energy. We show that BLAM can achieve an increase of 15% in network lifetime and an increase of about 35% in the total number of received packets.