An 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 micro-sensor nodes continuously observing a physical phenomenon. Energy efficient approaches or tools are the key to prolong the lifetime of the sensor nodes. This research presents a cross-layer approach between the medium access control (MAC) and the network layer to achieve energy efficiency. To get a bigger insight, number of sensor nodes is increased and performance of the whole network is evaluated. Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) is used in this work as routing protocol in the network layer along with IEEE-802.11 protocol in the MAC layer. Simulation results (Figure 4.8 and Figure 4.9) show that the cross-layer approach obtains significant energy savings compared with Sensor MAC (S-MAC) protocol and traditional approach. It also shows that the performance of IEEE-802.11 MAC can be made more efficient by implementing the proposed cross-layer approach