School of Physics, Engineering and Technology

Medium Access Control for Wireless Sensor Networks Realised Through Aerial Platforms

Wireless Sensor Networks consist of a large number of wireless sensor nodes randomly deployed in an ad-hoc fashion in a test area; all the nodes then organise themselves to produce an efficient and effective sensor system. WSNs can be used in many applications such as disaster prevention, environmental monitoring, and military projects. Because the test areas are often in remote or inaccessible locations, it is hard to recharge wireless sensor nodes with a fixed power supply, and to prolong the network's useful lifetime, battery capacity must be used as efficiently as possible. Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols are responsible for managing how nodes send out packets via a shared communication channel, and can have a major impact on system energy consumption.

The purpose of this project is to develop an energy-efficient MAC protocol that allows information to be transferred through a sensor network over a common radio channel directly to, or from, an aerial platform (a plane, balloon, or airship at high altitude). With all communications over direct channels, there is no need to route packets through several nodes, reducing the overall routing burden on the sensor network.

A mixture of simulation and analysis is used. The MAC protocol designed in the project will be simulated in OPNET to get system performance results, which can be compared with existing MAC protocols.

Key objectives

To understand how the design of MAC protocols can affect the energy efficiency of a sensor network.
To simulate and characterise the main existing MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks.
To understand the application of aerial platforms and their characteristics to wireless sensor networks.
To combine MAC protocol design with aerial platforms.

Members

Hengguang Li

Paul Mitchell

Tim Tozer

Dates

October 2006 to
October 2009

Research