Energy Efficient MAC Protocol for Lifetime Maximization in Wireless Sensor Networks

One of the basic limitations of a non-rechargeable battery powered wireless sensor network (WSN) is the lack of energy efficiency, which retards the network lifetime (NL). In this paper, Ant Colony optimization based MAC (ACO-MAC) protocols, which jointly exploits residual energy information (REI) and channel state information (CSI) of sensor nodes for NL maximization is proposed. REI comprises of residual energy (E) of sensor nodes whereas CSI comprises of fading (h) and channel gain (G) of sensor nodes. ACO-MAC protocols employ a dual combination of h, G and E of sensor nodes for distributed transmission scheduling in the network. Case (i). both h and E are considered-ACO-MAC
hE
protocol, Case (ii). both h and G are considered-ACO-MAC
hG
protocol and Case (iii). both E and G are considered-ACO-MACEG protocol. In each case, optimal sensor scheduling is done on the basis of path probability selection of ACO algorithm. Simulation results show that, ACO-MAC protocol employing h-E transmission scheme is performing better in terms of network lifetime, energy conservation and throughput as compared to ACO-MAC protocol employing h-G and E-G transmission schemes.