Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 15838

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Electrical and Data Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Interests: communications; networks; complexity; protocols

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are becoming a very significant part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is emerging as an area of technical, social, and economic significance. It is found in consumer products, durable goods, cars and trucks, industrial and utility components, sensors, and other everyday objects. Its power is in its connectivity with powerful data analytic capabilities that promise to transform the way we work, live, and play. The IoT is projected to have a powerful impact on the Internet and the global economy, with as many as 100 billion connected IoT devices, and trillions of dollars of economic impact by 2025. 

The technology of wireless sensor networks is integral to the IoT. It is a collection of sensing nodes with limited processing power, limited energy reserve, and limited radio communication capabilities. These are widely implemented in many areas of applications, such as industry, environment, healthcare, etc. In recent years, they have started to become smaller, less expensive, and more intelligent. They can sense, measure, and gather information from their environment and transmit the sensed data to the user based on local decision processes. The data are collected via routing protocols to a central location. 

It is these protocols that are crucial to the survival and longevity of the network. Traditional hierarchical protocols in layers 1 to 4 are not suitable, giving rise to the need for new protocols across the layers that minimize energy consumption, while allowing for energy harvesting and survivability. Traditional criteria such as connectivity assurance and data integrity are now of lesser importance. New modeling and analysis techniques such as the study of complexity are required. New carrier media such as acoustics must be investigated. New information theory must be developed. In short, we must start to think of biological metaphors, and biomimetic techniques that may be more appropriate to what we may think of as “social” networks. 

In this Special Edition, we are particularly interested in new ways of thinking about cooperative networks and the nature of the information that flows through them.

Prof. Robin Braun
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Wireless
  • Protocols
  • Ad hoc
  • Cooperative
  • Sensors
  • Networks

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 2663 KiB  
Article
Expected Area-Based Real-Time Routing Protocol for Supporting Mobile Sinks in Wireless Sensor Networks
by Youngju Nam, Hyunseok Choi, Yongje Shin, Soochang Park and Euisin Lee
Electronics 2022, 11(20), 3350; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11203350 - 17 Oct 2022
Viewed by 951
Abstract
To deliver real-time data within a desired time deadline, a spatiotemporal approach has been proposed in wireless sensor networks. In the approach, real-time data can be delivered with a delivery speed calculated by both the distance from a source to a static sink [...] Read more.
To deliver real-time data within a desired time deadline, a spatiotemporal approach has been proposed in wireless sensor networks. In the approach, real-time data can be delivered with a delivery speed calculated by both the distance from a source to a static sink and the desired time deadline. In the case of a mobile sink, because the distance from a source to the sink would be dynamically changed due to its movement, real-time data cannot be delivered due to the inability to calculate a delivery speed. Thus, we propose a novel real-time routing protocol, called EAR2 (expected area-based real-time routing) for mobile sinks. Instead of the immediate distance, EAR2 considers the static distance to the expected area of a mobile sink’s location using its movement speed. To satisfy the desired time deadline, EAR2 guarantees that the total summation of the unicasting time to the expected area and the flooding time within the expected area can be smaller than the deadline. To do this, EAR2 calculates a data delivery speed by using the static distance and the unicasting time and exploits the flooding time observed from various network environments. Because EAR2 has a high flooding time and data loss problems due to a single flooding point, we propose a protocol called EAR2M with multiple flooding points, which reduces the flooding time and enhances the reliability of data transmission. We also propose two extensions of EAR2M, called EAR2M_R and EAR2M_E for efficient data transmission from a source to multiple flooding points. They aim to reduce the transmission delay and the energy consumption for efficient data transmission among multiple flooding points, respectively. Simulation results show that EAR2 improves the deadline miss ratio and the energy consumption, with averages improvements of 47.17% and 29.99% over the existing schemes, respectively. Furthermore, EAR2M with four flooding points enhances the deadline miss ratio and the energy consumption by an average of 12.69% and 131.86% over EAR2. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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9 pages, 2587 KiB  
Article
Throughput Optimized Reversible Cellular Automata Based Security Algorithm
by Surendra Kumar Nanda, Suneeta Mohanty, Prasant Kumar Pattnaik and Mangal Sain
Electronics 2022, 11(19), 3190; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11193190 - 05 Oct 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1430
Abstract
Reversible cellular automation is a highly parallel system and produces enhanced throughput in its cryptographic applications. The throughput optimized security algorithm based on reversible cellular automata produces a better result in high-performance systems with many cores of CPU or GPU. We designed a [...] Read more.
Reversible cellular automation is a highly parallel system and produces enhanced throughput in its cryptographic applications. The throughput optimized security algorithm based on reversible cellular automata produces a better result in high-performance systems with many cores of CPU or GPU. We designed a throughput optimized block encryption technique using reversible cellular automata and compared its performance with other cellular automata-based algorithms. We tested its performance in both 8 core and 64 core CPU systems and the results showed an enhancement in throughput. This encryption system produced plaintext blocks that are immune to other blocks during cryptanalysis because of segmentation and the use of the different random numbers as seeds. It was built with 128 bits block encryption, but it was easily scalable to a higher block size without changing the algorithm. Each block of encryption used a cipher block chaining mode and was hence more secure and effective. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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28 pages, 1221 KiB  
Article
Empirical Analysis of Extended QX-MAC for IOT-Based WSNS
by Farhana Afroz and Robin Braun
Electronics 2022, 11(16), 2543; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11162543 - 14 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1310
Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects our world in more ways than we imagine. Wireless sensor network (WSN) technology is at the core of implementing IoT architectures. Although WSN applications give us enormous opportunities, their deployment is challenging because of the energy constraint [...] Read more.
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects our world in more ways than we imagine. Wireless sensor network (WSN) technology is at the core of implementing IoT architectures. Although WSN applications give us enormous opportunities, their deployment is challenging because of the energy constraint in sensor nodes. The primary design objective of WSNs is therefore to maximize energy efficiency. Enhancing network quality of service (QoS), such as latency, is another crucial factor, particularly for different delay-sensitive applications. Medium access control (MAC) protocols are of paramount importance to achieve these targets. Over the years, several duty-cycled MAC protocols were proposed. Among them, the strobed preamble approach introduced in X-MAC has gained much interest in IoT field because of its several theoretical advantages. However, X-MAC is highly efficient only under light traffic. Under heavy traffic, X-MAC incurs high per-packet overhead and extra delay. In addition, X-MAC has several design flaws that can significantly degrade network performance. In this paper, we point out some specific malfunctions in the original X-MAC design and propose alternatives to reduce their impact. We present an energy-efficient, traffic-adaptive MAC protocol called QX-MAC that addresses the foreseen shortcomings in X-MAC. QX-MAC integrates Q-learning and the more bit scheme to enable the nodes to adapt the active period and duty cycle in accordance with incoming traffic. Finally, the performance of QX-MAC is thoroughly analyzed compared with other reference protocols to validate its efficacy. Our QX-MAC simulation results demonstrate substantial improvements in overall network performance in terms of energy consumption, packet loss, delay, or throughput. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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14 pages, 812 KiB  
Article
ASMAC: An Adaptive Slot Access MAC Protocol in Distributed VANET
by Shi-Yuan Han and Chang-Yue Zhang
Electronics 2022, 11(7), 1145; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11071145 - 05 Apr 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2413
Abstract
The media access control (MAC) protocol is responsible for channel resource sharing and conflict management in the communication process in VANET, which is of great significance for ensuring efficient and reliable communication. The existing MAC protocol with fixed time slot allocation cannot solve [...] Read more.
The media access control (MAC) protocol is responsible for channel resource sharing and conflict management in the communication process in VANET, which is of great significance for ensuring efficient and reliable communication. The existing MAC protocol with fixed time slot allocation cannot solve the problem of time slot resource exhaustion or waste when the traffic density is unbalanced. In this paper, we propose an adaptive time slot access MAC protocol in distributed VANET (ASMAC). ASMAC adapts the access time slot according to the driving direction of the vehicle and the traffic density ratio to improve the time slot access efficiency. In the ASMAC protocol, the frame is divided into several time slots based on TDMA, and the time slots in a frame are divided into two time slot sets according to the driving direction. The vehicle selects a time slot access corresponding to the time slot set. When the vehicle finds that there is no accessible time slot in the time slot set, it accesses the available time slot in the reverse time slot set to improve the efficiency of time slot access. In this paper, the analysis and simulation results of highway and four-way intersection scenarios are given and the validity of the ASMAC protocol is verified by comparing with the VeMAC and SAMD protocols. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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18 pages, 1181 KiB  
Article
Throughput Analysis for Wireless Full-Duplex Multi-Hop Networks with RTS/CTS-Based MAC
by Yosuke Yumen, Shota Sakakura, Kosuke Sanada, Hiroyuki Hatano and Kazuo Mori
Electronics 2022, 11(6), 892; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11060892 - 12 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1912
Abstract
Medium access control (MAC) protocol operations for in-band full duplex multi-hop networks play an important role in efficient data relaying and throughput enhancement. Knowledge of the relationship between essential operations in MAC protocol for full duplex MAC (FD MAC) networks and network performance [...] Read more.
Medium access control (MAC) protocol operations for in-band full duplex multi-hop networks play an important role in efficient data relaying and throughput enhancement. Knowledge of the relationship between essential operations in MAC protocol for full duplex MAC (FD MAC) networks and network performance is important and useful in terms of the protocol and network design. FD MAC protocols often require exchanging control frames, e.g., request to send/clear to send (RTS/CTS). However, the conventional model cannot analyze the performance of wireless multi-hop networks with RTS/CTS-based FD MAC. Thus, this paper proposes a throughput analysis model for wireless multi-hop networks with RTS/CTS-based FD MAC. The proposed model includes novel “airtime expressions”, which allows us to handle RTS/CTS operations under FD MAC. The proposed model provides the end-to-end throughput of multi-hop networks with RTS/CTS-based FD MAC for any number of hops and any payload size. The validity of the analytical expressions is confirmed through comparisons with simulation results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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Review

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29 pages, 582 KiB  
Review
Routing Protocols for Mobile Internet of Things (IoT): A Survey on Challenges and Solutions
by Zawar Shah, Andrew Levula, Khawar Khurshid, Jawad Ahmed, Imdad Ullah and Sushmita Singh
Electronics 2021, 10(19), 2320; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10192320 - 22 Sep 2021
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 6732
Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) is aimed to provide efficient and seamless connectivity to a large number of low-power and low-cost embedded devices, consequently, the routing protocols play a fundamental role in achieving these goals. The IETF has recently standardized the IPv6 Routing [...] Read more.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is aimed to provide efficient and seamless connectivity to a large number of low-power and low-cost embedded devices, consequently, the routing protocols play a fundamental role in achieving these goals. The IETF has recently standardized the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) for LLNs (i.e., Low-power and Lossy Networks) and is well-accepted among the Internet community. However, RPL was proposed for static IoT devices and suffers from many issues when IoT devices are mobile. In this paper, we first present various issues that are faced by the RPL when IoT devices are mobile. We then carry out a detailed survey of various solutions that are proposed in the current literature to mitigate the issues faced by RPL. We classify various solutions into five categories i.e., ‘Trickle-timer based solutions’, ‘ETX based solutions’, ‘RSSI based solutions’, ‘Position-based solutions’, and ‘Miscellaneous solutions’. For each category of these solutions, we illustrate their working principles, issues addressed and make a thorough assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, we found several flaws in the performance analysis done by the authors of each of the solutions, e.g., nodes mobility, time intervals, etc., and suggest further investigations for the performance evaluations of these solutions in order to assess their applicability in real-world environments. Moreover, we provide future research directions for RPL supporting various real-time applications, mobility support, energy-aware, and privacy-aware routing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks)
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