Modeling and Analyzing Duty-Cycling Pipelined-Scheduling MAC for Linear Sensor Networks

Linear sensor networks (LSNs) have recently attracted increasing attention due to the vast requirements on the monitoring and surveillance of a structure or an area with a linear topology. However, there is not a lot of work on network modeling and analysis based on a duty-cycling medium access control (MAC) protocol for LSNs. In this paper, we model a duty-cycling MAC with a pipelined-scheduling feature for an LSN, where each node is responsible for monitoring a certain area and can generate packets according to its sensed results. Based on the model, we analyze the network performance in terms of system throughput, active time ratio per cycle of each node, and packet delivery latency. Through extensive OPNET-based simulations, we validate the model and reveal the dependence of the network performance on various system parameters. Apart from enabling the effective estimation of the protocol performance by using our model, we believe that our model and analysis could provide an insightful understanding on the behavior of a duty-cycling MAC protocol and aid in its design and optimization for a multihop LSN.