research-article

Efficient Multichannel Communications in Wireless Sensor Networks

Authors:

John A. Stankovic,

Shan LinAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), Volume 12, Issue 1

Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 23

https://doi.org/10.1145/2840808

Published: 08 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

This article demonstrates how to use multiple channels to improve communication performance in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). We first investigate multichannel realities in WSNs through intensive empirical experiments with Micaz motes. Our study shows that current multichannel protocols are not suitable for WSNs because of the small number of available channels and unavoidable time errors found in real networks. With these observations, we propose a novel tree-based, multichannel scheme for data collection applications, which allocates channels to disjoint trees and exploits parallel transmissions among trees. In order to minimize interference within trees, we define a new channel assignment problem that is proven NP-complete. Then, we propose a greedy channel allocation algorithm that outperforms other schemes in dense networks with a small number of channels. We implement our protocol, called the Tree-based, Multichannel Protocol (TMCP), in a real testbed. To adjust to networks with link quality heterogeneity, an extension of TMCP is also proposed. Through both simulation and real experiments, we show that TMCP can significantly improve network throughput and reduce packet losses. More important, evaluation results show that TMCP better accommodates multichannel realities found in WSNs than other multichannel protocols.

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Index Terms

Efficient Multichannel Communications in Wireless Sensor Networks
1. Networks
  1. Network protocols
    1. Network protocol design

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks

ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks Volume 12, Issue 1

March 2016

215 pages

ISSN:1550-4859

EISSN:1550-4867

DOI:10.1145/2892663

Editor:
Chenyang Lu
Department of Computer Science and Engineering / School of Engineering and Applied Sciences / Washington University / 1 Brookings Drive / St. Louis, MO

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Journal Family

ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 08 March 2016

Accepted: 01 October 2015

Revised: 01 October 2015

Received: 01 June 2015

Published in TOSN Volume 12, Issue 1

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Mao JZhao YXia YYang ZXu CLiu WHuang D(2023)Revisiting Link Quality Metrics and Models for Multichannel Low-Power Lossy NetworksSensors10.3390/s2303130323:3(1303)Online publication date: 23-Jan-2023
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Ebrahim NQuasim M(2021)EMCSS: efficient multi-channel and time-slot schedulingWireless Networks10.1007/s11276-021-02620-327:4(2879-2890)Online publication date: 1-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11276-021-02620-3
Tong FSui RZhang YTang W(2021)MPDC: A Multi-channel Pipelined Data Collection MAC for Duty-Cycled Linear Sensor NetworksWireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications10.1007/978-3-030-86130-8_43(550-562)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-030-86130-8_43
Debadarshini JSaha SLandsiedel OChoon Chan M(2020)Start of Frame Delimiters (SFDs) for Simultaneous Intra-Group One-to-All Dissemination2020 IEEE 45th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN)10.1109/LCN48667.2020.9314842(100-111)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2020
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Vo VNguyen TLe DChoo H(2020)Adaptive Contiguous Scheduling for Data Aggregation in Multichannel Wireless Sensor NetworksFuture Data and Security Engineering10.1007/978-3-030-63924-2_7(124-133)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2020
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Wang HMa JYang DGidlund M(2019)Efficient Resource Scheduling for Multipath Retransmission over Industrial WSAN SystemsSensors10.3390/s1918392719:18(3927)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2019
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Ahmad AHanzalek Z(2019)An Energy-efficient Distributed TDMA Scheduling Algorithm for ZigBee-like Cluster-tree WSNsACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/336072216:1(1-41)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2019
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