WSN11-4: A Cross Layer Design of IEEE 802.15.4 MAC Protocol

In this paper we propose a cross-layer design for IEEE 802.15.4 MAC protocol that is based on a distributed backoff strategy governed by the wireless link quality measurements which are part of the standard. Our performance evaluation indicates that our scheme is more effective, achieving up to 69% higher goodput, and more efficient, delivering up to 154% more data bits per unit of energy consumed in the network, at the expense of an up to 18% degradation in fairness, compared to the basic 802.15.4.