ASS-MAC: Adaptive sleeping sensor MAC protocol designed for Wireless Sensor Networks

Nowadays Wireless Sensor Networks are deployed for a huge diversity of applications that overlay all the fields of our daily life. They are composed of a large number of sensor nodes that are, generally, powered by irreplaceable batteries, which should hold on for the maximum to extend the sensor lifetime. So, one of the main constraint in front of this kind of networks is energy conservation. Knowing that the transceiver is the main source of energy dissipation, we have to design a convenient solution at the MAC layer to maximize the network lifetime. In these networks, we are interested to reduce energy consumption in the network without affecting the latency. In this paper we propose to adapt the node sleeping time dynamically based on the last observed traffic. If there is a significant traffic load around the node during the previous superframe, it decreases its sleep time; otherwise, it prolongs its sleep duration. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol provides enhanced performances compared to S-MAC protocol.