Performance Analysis of Synchronous Wakeup Patterns in Contention-Based Sensor Networks Using a Finite Queuing Model

To conserve energy, periodical active/sleep dynamics is adopted in the design of medium access protocol (MAC) in wireless sensor networks. At the same time, the QoS requirements (e.g. packet delay, packet loss rate and throughput) need to be satisfied. In synchronous wakeup patterns of contention-based sensor networks, nodes wake up simultaneously and compete to access a shared channel for data transmission. We develop a finite queuing model for the sensor nodes and derive the network performance of contention-based sensor networks with the synchronous wakeup patterns. Furthermore, the impact of active/sleep duty cycle, active time scale and node buffer size on the tradeoff between power efficiency and QoS requirements is studied based on the model. Simulation results match well with our analysis results and validate the accuracy of our model and approach.