Performance comparison of CSMA, MACA, Generic MAC and Sensor MAC channel access protocols for ZigBee WSN with RIPv2 as Routing protocol

Abstract

Monitoring and coordinating the remote physical conditions of an environment is found difficult in many user applications. A wireless sensor network can be one of the best solutions in this application. Sensors are inter-connected together in the form of a mesh network to form Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Transmitter and receiver are embedded in a single sensor called a "NODE" in other words called a transceiver, which is a battery operated and microcontroller enabled intelligent device. Further the nodes can also be interconnected in different topologies viz., Star, Ring, Mesh, etc.While many channel access protocols may be competent for using them in Wireless Sensor Networks, it is commonly found that IEEE 802.15.4 MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol is often used over IEEE standard 802.15.4 ZigBee protocol stack. As there are many other protocols reported in literature, it is felt necessary to revisit all the suitable protocols to find, if any, more efficient protocol for WSN exists. In this paper a study is carried out with CSMA, MACA and GENERIC MAC protocols for their suitability for WSN. The study is done by simulating these protocols in 802.15.4 ZigBee for different number of nodes from 15 to 30. The summary of the characteristics of all these protocols is presented. Qualnet 5.0.2 network simulator is employed to analyze the important characteristics like throughput, end-to- end delay, jitter, total packets received, etc., by varying the various parameters under low, medium and heavy loads.