Performance evaluation of X-MAC/BEB protocol for wireless sensor networks

This paper proposes an X-MAC/BEB protocol that runs a binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm on top of an X-MAC protocol to save more energy by reducing collision, especially in densely populated wireless sensor networks (WSNs). X-MAC, a lightweight asynchronous duty cycle medium access control (MAC) protocol, was introduced for spending less energy than its predecessor, B-MAC. One of X-MAC 's conspicuous technique is a mechanism to allow senders to promptly send their data when their receivers wake up. X-MAC, however, has no mechanism to deal with sudden traffic fluctuations that often occur whenever closely located nodes simultaneously diffuse their sense data. To precisely evaluate the impact of the BEB algorithm on X-MAC, this paper builds an analytical model of X-MAC/BEB that integrates the BEB model with the X-MAC model. The analytical and simulation results confirmed that X-MAC/BEB outperformed X-MAC in terms of throughput, delay, and energy consumption, especially in congested WSNs.