A contention/collision resolution scheme for large-scale sensor networks based on IEEE 802.15.4

Abstract

IEEE 802.15.4 has prominent advantages that are the low cost and low energy consumption. It is suitable to several energy critical applications suffered from limited resources. For this reason, many studies proposed energy-efficient solutions, however, they may waste energy caused by the frequent packet collisions since they do not consider the contentions in multi-coordinator environments. In response, we proposed a new contention resolution scheme to enhance the energy efficiency by reducing the contention among nearby coordinators. In the proposed scheme, the coordinators exchange schedules based on the collected information. It leads that the coordinators isolate the superframe duration by staggering own beacon transmission. This can mitigate significant contentions among burst packets at the beginning of the superframe to reduce energy consumption. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms existing solutions.