In Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), duty-cycled Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols trade off latency for energy efficient operation. Over the past few years, Wake-Up Radio (WuR) has been presented as the ultimate solution for this tradeoff, allowing to reduce both at the same time. However, this might not be the general case regarding the large range of network configurations used in WSN. Several previous works have been done comparing WuR to traditional duty-cycled solutions, but no one has investigated before the limitations of this technology. In this article, we analyze the benefits and drawbacks of using WuR in multi-hop WSN. We also identify black spots in WuR that have not been investigated yet. Our study is based on evaluations using COOJA, a simulator for networks of ContikiOS nodes. A traditional duty-cycled MAC protocol is also included in our study for comparative purposes. From our study, we quantify the performances of WuR and provide some guidelines on how this technology can be efficiently used in multi-hop wireless sensor networks.
In an effort to extend the lifetime and reliability of multihop wireless sensor networks we recently presented LoBaPS, a protocol to select opportunistic parents and achieve load balancing. This algorithm takes advantage of the wake-up radio for its ultra-low power consumption and always-on feature. Moreover, it overcomes an open problem in the routing layer: achieving both stability and efficient parent selection at the same time. However, the random load balancing strategy and the energy wastage in listening mode still limits the network lifetime. In this article, we present eLoBaPS, a significant modification of LoBaPS that distributes better the energy among the parents improving around 17% the lifetime of the network towards the ideal case. In a nutshell, the next hop is selected in a decentralized way and it is the parent that issues a shorter back-off period before attempting to retransmit. In addition, the nodes overhear all the traffic in the wake-up radio channel and adapt the protocol parameters to the current state of the battery of the neighbors. We perform simulations with a network of ContikiOS nodes running eLoBaPS, LoBaPS and W-MAC, a reference protocol that uses the wakeup radio.
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