Traffic adaptive active period length control for cluster-based IEEE 802.15.4 sensor networks

This paper proposes an adaptive 2 level active period length control method based on traffic load in each cluster for cluster-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) employing IEEE 802.15.4 medium access control (MAC) protocol. The proposed method consists of two active period length controls: cluster level control and network level control. In the cluster level control, cluster heads autonomously control its active period length in the superframe defined by a personal area network (PAN) coordinator. In the network level control, the PAN coordinator manages the superframe structure for the whole network. The results evaluated by computer simulation show that the proposed method can improve the energy efficiency for the WSNs without degradation of the transmission performance.