Dual-mode real-time MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks: a validation/simulation approach

Several wireless sensor network applications are currently appearing in various domains. Their goal is often to monitor a geographical area. When a sensor detects a monitored event, it informs a sink node using alarm messages. The area surveillance application needs to react to such an event with a finite, bounded and known delay: these are real-time constraints. This work proposes a real-time MAC protocol with realistic assumptions for a random linear network, where sensors are deployed randomly along a line. We present a formal validation of this protocol both for initialization and run-time, and present simulation results on a realistic scenario.