GTS allocation scheme of IEEE 802.15.4 for energy-efficiency

Abstract

The reliability of data transmission and the energy consumption of wireless nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are important issues as interest in this type of network increases. IEEE 802.15.4 is a suitable protocol for WSNs because it was designed for low-power operation via wireless communications. The guaranteed time slot (GTS) of IEEE 802.15.4 can usually be used for cyclic data transmission. However, an unused GTS allocation wastes energy. This paper suggests an energy-efficient IEEE 802.15.4 data-transmission scheduling scheme for use on WSNs. The unused GTS allocation can be eliminated, and unnecessary energy consumption can be reduced through the appropriate allocation of GTS to the data generation period of each node. An illustrative scenario showed that this technique reduced the consumption of energy while maintaining the reliability of data transmission. ©2009 IEEE.