Diff-MAC: a QoS-aware MAC protocol with differentiated services and hybrid prioritization for wireless multimedia sensor networks

Abstract

Popularity of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) combined with the multimedia requirements of new applications have enabled Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) which commonly carry heterogeneous traffic. In order to deliver multiple types of traffic with different requirements in highly resource constrained sensor networks, Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning becomes unavoidable. In this work, we propose Diff-MAC; a QoS-aware and priority-based MAC protocol for WMSNs. Diff-MAC aims to increase the utilization of the channel with effective service differentiation mechanisms while providing fair and fast delivery of the QoS-constrained data. Performance evaluation results of Diff-MAC, obtained through extensive simulations, show significant improvements, in terms of latency, data delivery and energy efficiency, compared to two other existing protocols.