A Contention-Based MAC and Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Network

Advance development of wireless technologies and micro-sensor systems have enabled Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to emerge as a leading solution in many crucial sensor-based applications. WSN deploys numerous resource-constrained sensor nodes which have limited power supply, memory and computation capability in a harsh environment. Inefficient routing strategy results in degraded network performance in terms of reliability, latency and energy efficiency. In this paper, a cross-layer design, Contention-based MAC and Routing protocol is proposed, termed Contention/SNIR-Based Forwarding (CSBF) protocol. CSBF utilizes the geographical information of sensor nodes to effectively guide the routing direction towards destination node, thereby enhancing reliability. Furthermore, Signal-to-Noise-plus-Interference Ratio (SNIR) metric is used as a routing parameter to guarantee high quality link for data transmission. A Contention-Winner Relay scheme is utilized to reduce the delays caused by the contention procedure. Energy efficiency is also improved by introducing sleep mode technique in CSBF. The simulation work is carried out via OMNeT++ network simulator. The performance of CSBF is compared with other existing routing protocols such as AODV and DSDV in terms of packet delivery ratio (PDR), average end-to-end (ETE) delay and energy consumption per packet. Simulation results highlight that CSBF outperforms AODV and DSDV protocols in respect of PDR and energy efficiency. CSBF also has the most consistent overall network performance.