Energy efficient MAC protocol for condition monitoring sensor networks

A MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks to monitor manufacturing equipment and processes has been developed. Typically, a single machine defect may trigger multiple sensors to respond and transmit a string of defect data to the central control station, leading to high network collision rate, which in turn consumes power on the side of the sensors. For battery-driven, miniaturized sensors, such an energy-inefficient mode of operation may severely reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire sensor network. Realistically, the number of the fault-registering sensors is not a constant, but various continuously, corresponding to the ad hoc nature of the defect generation. This suggests that a Round Bobin type of scheduling algorithms may not be suitable for sensor network routing purpose. In comparison, the presented MAC algorithm is simple and efficient extensive simulation as well as hardware implementation is demonstrated in this paper.