Energy Efficient Cross-Layer Approach for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Energy minimization has become a burning issue for Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which are mainly event based systems and rely on the collective effort of several microsensor nodes continuously observing a physical phenomenon. Energy efficient approaches or tools are the key to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes. This paper presents a cross-layer approach between the medium access control (MAC) and the network layer to achieve energy efficiency. Ad-hoc OnDemand Distance Vector (AODV) is used here as routing protocol in the network layer along with IEEE-802.11 protocol in the MAC layer. Simulation results show that cross-layer approach obtains significant energy savings compared with traditional approaches.