FS-MAC: A Mac Protocol to Minimize Sensor Network Packet Delay Using a Fast Synchronization

Abstract

In this paper, we propose FS-MAC, a fast synchronization medium access control (MAC) protocol in mobile wireless sensor networks, which minimizes packet delay with mobility-based sleep-wakeup scheduling using a sleep-wakeup schedule generator and watchdog nodes. Previous MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks assume static sensor nodes. They concentrate on energy efficiency, rather than on packet delay. Thus, these MAC protocols are not suitable for the mobile wireless sensor network environment. The proposed MAC protocol is a high throughput MAC protocol and CSMA/CA based protocol. Hence, it guarantees collision avoidance. It consists of watchdog nodes and a redesigned sleep-wakeup schedule generator. The performance of FS-MAC and S-MAC are evaluated. They are compared with respect to two performance metrics: energy consumption and average packet delay. Simulation results in mobile wireless sensor networks show that FS-MAC outperforms S-MAC, while the performance of FS-MAC is similar to S-MAC in static wireless sensor networks.