Superframe Duration Allocation Schemes to Improve the Throughput of Cluster-Tree Wireless Sensor Networks

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2017

Authors

Leao, E (Author) Other; Montez, C (Author) Other; Moraes, R (Author) Other; Paulo Portugal (Author) FEUP; Francisco Vasques (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Sensors

Vol. 17

Final page: 249

ISSN: 1424-3210

Publisher: MDPI

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 11 Citations

Scopus - 19 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00M-FMM

DOI: 10.3390/s17020249

Abstract (EN): The use ofWireless Sensor Network (WSN) technologies is an attractive option to support wide-scale monitoring applications, such as the ones that can be found in precision agriculture, environmental monitoring and industrial automation. The IEEE 802.15.4/ZigBee cluster-tree topology is a suitable topology to build wide-scale WSNs. Despite some of its known advantages, including timing synchronisation and duty-cycle operation, cluster-tree networks may suffer from severe network congestion problems due to the convergecast pattern of its communication traffic. Therefore, the careful adjustment of transmission opportunities (superframe durations) allocated to the cluster-heads is an important research issue. This paper proposes a set of proportional Superframe Duration Allocation (SDA) schemes, based on well-defined protocol and timing models, and on the message load imposed by child nodes (Load-SDA scheme), or by number of descendant nodes (Nodes-SDA scheme) of each cluster-head. The underlying reasoning is to adequately allocate transmission opportunities (superframe durations) and parametrize buffer sizes, in order to improve the network throughput and avoid typical problems, such as: network congestion, high end-to-end communication delays and discarded messages due to buffer overflows. Simulation assessments show how proposed allocation schemes may clearly improve the operation of wide-scale cluster-tree networks.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 35