An address-light, integrated MAC and routing protocol for wireless sensor networks

We propose an address-light, integrated MAC and routing protocol (abbreviated AIMRP) for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Due to the broad spectrum of WSN applications, there is a need for protocol solutions optimized for specific application classes. AIMRP is proposed for WSNs deployed for detecting rare events which require prompt detection and response. AIMRP organizes the network into concentric tiers around the sink(s), and routes event reports by forwarding them from one tier to another, in the direction of (one of) the sink(s). AIMRP is address-light in that it does not employ unique per-node addressing, and integrated since the MAC control packets are also responsible for finding the next-hop node to relay the data, via an anycast query. For reducing the energy expenditure due to idle-listening, AIMRP provides a power-saving algorithm which requires absolutely no synchronization or information exchange. We evaluate AIMRP through analysis and simulations, and compare it with another MAC protocol proposed for WSNs, S-MAC. AIMRP outperforms S-MAC for event-detection applications, in terms of total average power consumption, while satisfying identical sensor-to-sink latency constraints.