Duty cycle adapted MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks with energy harvesting

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networking is an important area of research due to its wide and varied applications, especially in environmental monitoring and health monitoring. Battery-powered Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) face the problem of limited lifetime due to fast depletion of charge of typical batteries. The incorporation of energy harvesting in WSNs thus becomes crucial for extending the lifetime of battery-powered WSNs, while enhancing the network performance. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol has to be properly designed so as to ensure proper operation of the sensor nodes in WSNs with energy harvesting. This paper presents a MAC protocol for energy harvesting WSNs, based on IEEE 802.15.4 MAC, which takes into account the power consumption of the sensor nodes during operation and the battery discharge characteristics. This MAC protocol also employs duty cycle adaptation based on node energy.