MAC-Level Communication Time Modeling and Analysis for Real-Time WSNs

Abstract

Low-level communication protocols and their timing behavior are essential to developing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) able to provide the support and operating guarantees required by many current real-time applications. Nevertheless, this aspect still remains an issue in the state-of-the-art. In this paper we provide a detailed analysis of a recently proposed MAC-level communication timing model and demonstrate its usability in designing real-time protocols. The results of a large set of measurements are also presented and discussed here, in direct relation to the main time parameters of the analyzed model.

Keywords

• wireless sensor networks
• real-time systems
• wireless communication
• access protocol
• time measurement