Energy-efficient multi-hop medical sensor networking

Abstract-- Wireless sensor networks represent a key technology enabler for enhanced health care and assisted living systems. Recent standardization efforts to ensure compatibility among sensor network systems sold by different vendors have produced the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which specifies the MAC and physical layer behavior. This standard has certain drawbacks: it supports only single-hop communication; it does not mitigate the hidden terminal problem; and it does not coordinate node sleeping patterns. The IEEE 802.15.4 standard design philosophy assumes that higher layer mechanisms will take care of any added functionality. Building on IEEE 802.15.4, this paper proposes TImezone COordinated Sleep Scheduling (TICOSS), a mechanism inspired by MERLIN [2] that provides multi-hop support over 802.15.4 through the division of the network into timezones. TICOSS is cross-layer in nature, as it closely coordinates MAC and routing layer behavior. The main contributions of TICOSS are threefol...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: MOBISYS
• Authors: Antonio G. Ruzzelli, Raja Jurdak, Gregory M. P. O'Hare, Peter van der Stok
• Keywords: IEEE 802.15.4 Networks, MOBISYS 2007, Physical Layer Behavior, Wireless Networks, Wireless Sensor Networks