An Energy-Efficient MAC Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks

Yongsheng SHI, T. Aaron GULLIVER

.

DOI: 10.4236/wsn.2009.15049                

Abstract

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of nodes equipped with wireless communications and a networking capability without central network control. Nodes in a MANET are free to move and organize themselves in an arbitrary fashion. Energy-efficient design is a significant challenge due to the characteristics of MANETs such as distributed control, constantly changing network topology, and mobile users with limited power supply. The IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol includes a power saving mechanism, but it has many limitations. A new energy-efficient MAC protocol (EE-MAC) is proposed in this paper. It is shown that EE-MAC performs better than IEEE 802.11 power saving mode and exceeds IEEE 802.11 with respect to balancing network throughput and energy savings.

Keywords

Energy-Efficient, MAC Protocol, IEEE 802.11, Ad Hoc Networks

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	S. Sheng, A. Chandrakasan, and R. W. Brodersen, “A portable multimedia terminal,” IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 30, No. 12, pp. 64–75, December 1992.
[2]	L. M. Feeney and M. Nilsson, “Investigating the energy consumption of a wireless network interface in an ad hoc networking environment,” Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, pp. 1548–1557, April 2001.
[3]	E. S. Jung and N. H. Vaidya, “An energy efficient MAC protocol for wireless LANs,” Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, pp. 1756–1764, June 2002.
[4]	K. Woo, C. Yu, D. Lee, H. Y. Youn, and B. Lee, “Non-blocking, localized routing algorithm for balanced energy consumption in mobile ad hoc networks,” Proceedings of International Symposium in Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, pp. 117–124, August 2001.
[5]	R. Zheng and R. Kravets, “On-demand power management for ad hoc networks,” Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, pp. 481–491, March 2003.
[6]	Y. Xu, J. Heidemann, and D. Estrin, “Geography-informed energy conservation for ad hoc routing,” Proceedings of ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, pp. 70–84, 2001.
[7]	Supplement to IEEE Standard for Information Technology-Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems-Local and Metropolitan Area Networks-Specific Requirements-Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications: High-speed Physical Layer Extension in 2.4 GHz Band, IEEE Std 802.11b, 2000.
[8]	M. S. Gast, 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, O’Reilly & Associates, 2002.
[9]	P. J. Wan, K. M. Alzoubi, and O. Frieder, “Distributed construction of connected dominating set in wireless ad hoc networks,” Mobile Networks and Applications, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 141–149, April 2004.
[10]	Y. P. Chen and A. L. Liestman, “Approximating minimum size weakly-connected dominating sets for clustering mobile ad hoc networks,” Proceedings of ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing, pp. 165–172, June 2002.
[11]	J. Wu and H. Li, “On calculating connected dominating set for efficient routing in ad hoc wireless networks,” Proceedings of ACM International Workshop on Discrete Algorithms and Methods for Mobile Computing and Communication, pp. 7–14, August 1999.
[12]	J. Wu and H. Li, “Domination and its applications in ad hoc wireless networks with unidirectional links,” Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Parallel Processing, pp. 189–197, August 2000.
[13]	UCB LBNL VINT Group, Network simulator (V. 2), http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns.
[14]	K. Fall and K. Varadhan, Network Simulator Notes and Documentation, The VINT Project, UC Berkeley, USC/ ISI, LBL and Xerox PARC, 1999, http:// www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns.
[15]	J. Broth, D. Maltz, D. Johnson, Y. C. Hu, and J. Jetcheva, “A performance comparison of multi-hop wireless ad hoc network routing protocols,” Proceedings of International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, pp. 85–97, October 1998.
[16]	D. Johnson, D. Maltz, and Y. C. Hu, “The dynamic source routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (DSR),” IETF draft, July 2004, http://www.ietf.org/ rfc/rfc3684.txt.