A Priority-based Dynamic TDMA-MAC Protocol for IoT-assisted WSNs

Abstract

The integration of wireless sensor networks with Internet of Things (IoT) have revolutionized many applications like health-care, industrial automation, transportation, and agriculture sectors. Such integration requires efficient utilization of resources in order to maximize bandwidth efficiency. This paper presents a dynamic Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) MAC protocol for IoT-assisted WSNs. The proposed protocol improves bandwidth utilization by allocating slots based on data volume of the nodes. Unlike the conventional TDMA that assigns slots statically, the proposed protocol dynamically allocates slots to nodes according to their requests incorporating criticality, traffic load, and residual energies of the nodes. Such dynamic allocation enhances network performance by reducing delay and increasing throughput. Performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated using the state-of-the-art network simulator NS-3. For different number of nodes, packet sizes, and arrival rates, the proposed protocol outperforms the conventional TDMA in terms of delay and throughput. Overall, the proposed protocol reduces delay by 25% and improves throughput by 26% compared to the conventional TDMA for IoT-assisted WSN.