title: W-MAC: a workload-aware MAC protocol for heterogeneous convergecast in wireless sensor networks.
abstract: The power consumption and latency of existing MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are high in heterogeneous convergecast, where each sensor node generates different amounts of data in one convergecast operation. To solve this problem, we present W-MAC, a workload-aware MAC protocol for heterogeneous convergecast in WSNs. A subtree-based iterative cascading scheduling mechanism and a workload-aware time slice allocation mechanism are proposed to minimize the power consumption of nodes, while offering a low data latency. In addition, an efficient schedule adjustment mechanism is provided for adapting to data traffic variation and network topology change. Analytical and simulation results show that the proposed protocol provides a significant energy saving and latency reduction in heterogeneous convergecast, and can effectively support data aggregation to further improve the performance.
authors.affiliation: College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, No. 38, Zhe-Da Road, Hangzhou, 310027 Zhejiang, China. nmlab_xiaming@zju.edu.cn
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Yabo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Dongming
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003625:Data Collection; D004560:Electricity; D013997:Time Factors; D059015:Wireless Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D016526:Workload