A cross-layer MAC protocol of embedded sensor network for PHM

Prognostics and System Health Management (PHM) has a significant influence on improving reliability and security of complex equipment, while embedded information perception and test are a major foundation for the realization of PHM. This paper proposed a novel media access control (MAC) protocol for massive wireless sensor networks which are served by the distributed antenna system (DAS). First, the sensor nodes around each remote antenna unit (RAU) of DAS are grouped together and assigned IDs to form a virtual token ring according to the one-hop neighborhood relationship between sensor nodes. An ID allocation algorithm is designed to reduce the size of a token ring, which results in the throughput improvement. And then, each sensor node transmits one-by-one according to the virtual token ring to eliminate potential collision. The performance of proposed MAC protocol is verified through the OPNET simulation. The simulation results reveal that the proposed MAC protocol achieves higher throughput than traditional distributed coordination function (DCF) and point coordination function (PCF) under heavy traffic.