Future Internet of Things (IoT) will utilize IEEE 802.15.4 based low data rate communication for various applications. In the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, nodes send data to their Personal Area Network (PAN) coordinator using the Guaranteed Time Slot (GTS). The standard does not meet the adaptive data requirements of GTS requesting nodes in an efficient manner. If requesting GTSs in an active period are more or less than the available limit, either the requested nodes will not be entertained or GTSs remain underutilized. Consequently, it may cause unnecessary delay or poor GTS utilization. In this paper, an Optimal GTS allocation Mechanism for Adaptive Duty cycle (OGMAD) is proposed that adapts the active period of the superframe in accordance with the requested data. OGMAD also reduces GTS size to improve link utilization as well as accommodate more GTS requesting nodes. Simulation results verify that OGMAD improves link utilization, reduces network delay and offers more nodes to transmit their data as compared to the standard.INDEX TERMS IEEE 802.15.4, Internet of things, wireless sensor networks, MAC protocol.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising technology that uses wireless sensor networks to enable data collection, monitoring, and transmission from the physical devices to the Internet. Due to its potential large scale usage, efficient routing and Medium Access Control (MAC) techniques are vital to meet various application requirements. Most of the IoT applications need low data rate and low powered wireless transmissions and IEEE 802.15.4 standard is mostly used in this regard which offers superframe structure at the MAC layer. However, for IoT applications where nodes have adaptive data traffic, the standard has some limitations such as bandwidth wastage and latency. In this paper, a new superframe structure is proposed that is backward compatible with the existing parameters of the standard. The proposed superframe overcomes limitations of the standard by fine-tuning its superframe structure and squeezing the size of its contention-free slots. Thus, the proposed superframe adjusts its duty cycle according to the traffic requirements and accommodates more nodes in a superframe structure. The analytical results show that our proposed superframe structure has almost 50% less delay, accommodate more nodes and has better link utilization in a superframe as compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.

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IEEE 802.15.4 standard is specifically designed for a low-rate and low-processing Internet of things (IoT) applications and offers guaranteed time slots. A beacon-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 consists of a superframe structure that comprises of the contention access period and contention-free period. During contention-free period, nodes transfer their data using guaranteed time slots without any collision. The coordinator node receives data transmission requests in one cycle and allocates guaranteed time slots to the nodes in the next cycle. This allocation process may cause large delay that may not be acceptable for few applications. In this work, a novel superframe structure is proposed that significantly reduces guaranteed time slots allocation delay for the nodes with data requests. The proposed superframe structure comprises of two contention access periods and one contention-free period, where contention-free period precedes both contention access periods with reduced slot size. In addition, the knapsack algorithm is modified for better guaranteed time slots allocation by allowing more guaranteed time slots requesting nodes to send their data as compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. The simulation and analytical results show that the proposed superframe structure reduces the network delay by up to 80%, increases contention-free period utilization up to 50%, and allocates guaranteed time slots up to 16 nodes in a single superframe duration.

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