Exploring the Energy-Latency Trade-Off for Broadcasts in Energy-Saving Sensor Networks

• Published in: 25th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS'05) pp. 17 - 26
• Main Authors: Miller, M.J., Sengul, C., Indranil Gupta
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2005
• Subjects: Analytical models; Broadcasting; Delay; Measurement; Media Access Protocol; Performance analysis; Sleep; Spread spectrum communication; Wireless application protocol; Wireless sensor networks
• ISBN: 9780769523316; 0769523315
• ISSN: 1063-6927
• DOI: 10.1109/ICDCS.2005.35

Networking protocols for multi-hop wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are required to simultaneously minimize resource usage as well as optimize performance metrics such as latency and reliability. This paper explores the energy-latency-reliability trade-off for broadcast in multi-hop WSNs, by presenting a new protocol called PBBF (probability-based broadcast forwarding). PBBF works at the MAC layer and can be integrated into any sleep scheduling protocol. For a given application-defined level of reliability for broadcasts, the energy required and latency obtained are found to be inversely related to each other. Our analysis and simulation study quantify this relationship at the reliability boundary, as well as performance numbers to be expected from a deployment. PBBF essentially offers a WSN application designer considerable flexibility in choice of desired operation points