DPLC: Dynamic Packet Length Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

Previous packet length optimizations for sensor networks often employ a fixed optimal length scheme, while in this study we present DPLC, a Dynamic Packet Length Control scheme. To make DPLC more efficient in terms of channel utilization, we incorporate a lightweight and accurate link estimation method that captures both physical channel conditions and interferences. We further provide two easy-to-use services, i.e., small message aggregation and large message fragmentation, to facilitate upper-layer application programming. The implementation of DPLC based on TinyOS 2.1 is lightweight, with respect to computation, memory, and header overhead. Our experiments using a real indoor testbed running CTP show that DPLC results in a 13% reduction in transmission overhead and a 41.8% reduction in energy consumption compared with the original protocol, and a 21% reduction in transmission overhead and a 15.1% reduction in energy consumption compared with simple aggregation schemes.