On the design of an energy-efficient low-latency integrated protocol for distributed mobile sensor networks

Abstract

Self organizing, wireless sensors networks are an emergent and challenging technology that is attracting large attention in the sensing and monitoring community. Impressive progress has been done in recent years even if we need to assume that an optimal protocol for every kind of sensor network applications can not exist. As a result it is necessary to optimize the protocol for certain scenarios. In many applications for instance latency is a crucial factor in addition to energy consumption. MERLIN performs its best in such WSNs where there is the need to reduce the latency while ensuring that energy consumption is kept to a minimum. By means of that, the low latency characteristic of MERLIN can be used as a trade of€ to extend node lifetimes. The performance in terms of energy consumption and latency is optimized by acting on the slot length. MERLIN is designed specifically to integrate routing, MAC and localization protocols together. Furthermore it can support data queries which is a typical application for WSNs. The MER-LIN protocol eliminates the necessity to have any explicit handshake mechanism among nodes. Furthermore, the reliability is improved using multiple path message propagation in combination with an overhearing mechanism. The protocol divides the network into subsets where nodes are grouped in time zones. As a result MERLIN also shows a good scalability by utilizing an appropriate scheduling mechanism in combination with a contention period.

MERLIN: A Synergetic Integration of MAC and Routing Protocol for Distributed Sensor Networks

“…These developments build on earlier work in [17] resulting in the introduction of a novel transmission mechanism. A simulation of MERLIN is presented along with a comprehensive evaluation of its performance in comparison to SMAC [23] and the Eyes Source Routing [22] (ESR) protocols, as such protocols provide a useful benchmark against which MERLIN can be compared.…”

Adaptive Scheduling in Wireless Sensor Networks

“…The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-32993-0 29 destination, as well as overload on the low memory of the sensor node processor. Ruzzelli et al [1], proposed the lightweight MERLIN protocol to integrate MAC and Routing into one simple architecture. MERLIN has been designed to reduce the energy consumption of nodes by trading off its intrinsic low-latency properties.…”

An Energy-Efficient and Low-Latency Routing Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

“…The implementation of MERLIN uses the radio parameters of the EYES WSNs testbed which contains a small processor (MSP430) with a radio transceiver [13].…”

“…Usually, the major form of energy wastage within WSNs are [17]: idle listening to packets that have never been sent, collision of packets transmitted at the same time, transmissions overheard (e.g.due to control packets) and overhearing caused by listening to packets destined to other nodes. The MERLIN protocol for energy management within WSNs [13] was motivated by, and offers one approach to, such problems of wasteful energy consumption.…”