EC-MAC: Energy-Aware Cooperative MAC Protocol in Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract

Nowadays, cooperative communication algorithms have been utilized in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) to enhance the overall network performance. As is well known, a WSN needs to consider a number of important factors, such as the energy effectiveness and the longevity of the sensor nodes. The energy-aware cooperative medium access control (EC-MAC) protocol is a novel protocol proposed in this paper for usage in WSNs. EC-MAC protocol allows the source nodes to use the intermediate nodes as relays that can be used to transmit the source's data to the access point (AP). This paper demonstrates how the suggested relay selection method can be used by the EC-MAC protocol to choose the best relay node. After channel state information (CSI) has been calculated and acquired, the best relay should have the highest residual energy and the quickest transmission time. Then, by establishing suitable cooperative links, data transmission from a source node to an AP can be carried out. The effectiveness of the EC-MAC protocol in terms of system energy efficiency is examined in this study using the MATLAB simulation tool and compares the outcomes with other cooperative protocols like Modified Cooperative Access MAC Protocol (MCA-MAC) and Throughput and Energy aware Cooperative MAC Protocol (TEC-MAC) and the performance of WSNs employing the suggested EC-MAC protocol is examined in this research for both ideal and dynamic channel conditions. EC-MAC protocol achieved energy efficiency improvements of 20%, and 40% respectively, more than MCA-MAC and TEC-MAC protocols. The results indicated that EC-MAC protocol offers a higher level of energy efficiency for the WSN than other cooperative protocols currently in use.