Energy Efficient Cross Layer MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks in Remote Area Monitoring Applications

Abstract

Sensor nodes are typically less mobile, much limited in capabilities, and more densely deployed than the traditional wired networks as well as mobile ad-hoc networks. General Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are designed with electro-mechanical sensors through wireless data communication. Nowadays the WSN has become ubiquitous. WSN is used in combination with Internet of Things and in many Big Data applications, it is used in the lower layer for data collection. It is deployed in combination with several high end networks. All the higher layer networks and application layer services depend on the low level WSN in the deployment site. So to achieve energy efficiency in the overall network some simplification strategies have to be carried out not only in the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer but also in the network and transport layers. An energy efficient algorithm for scheduling and clustering is proposed and described in detail. The proposed methodology clusters the nodes using a traditional yet simplified approach of hierarchically sorting the sensor nodes. Few important works on cross layer protocols for WSNs are reviewed and an attempt to modify their pattern has also been presented in this paper with results. Comparison with few prominent protocols in this domain has also been made. As a result of the comparison one would get a basic idea of using which type of scheduling algorithm for which type of monitoring applications.