Z-MAC: Hybrid MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks

Injong Rhee Department of Computer Science North Carolina State University

With the following collaborators: Manesh Aia, Ajit Warrier, Jeongki Min
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Introduction

Basic goal of WSN Reliable data delivery consuming minimum power.

Diverse Applications
Low to high data rate applications Low data rate
Periodic wakeup, sense and sleep High data rate (102 to 105 Hz sampling rate) In fact, many applications are high rate Industrial monitoring, civil infrastructure, medial monitoring, industrial process control, fabrication plants (e.g.,
Intel), structural health monitoring, fluid pipelining monitoring, and hydrology

Pictures by Wei Hong, Rory Oconnor, Sam Madden

Diverse data rates within an application

Sink

E.g., Target tracking and monitoring Typically trigger multiple sensors in near vicinity Data aggregation near targets or the sink Some areas of the network could be highly contentious.

Sensor Network Research at NCSU

Energy efficient/Low overhead/High throughput MAC

Approaches: Hybrid, TDMA+CSMA Congestion control, routing, MAC and power control.

Cross-layer optimization

Data Aggregation and Target Tracking

Dynamic clustering and aggregation

Wild animal tracking Red Wolf tracking (@Alligator River), Black Bear tracking (@Smokey Mountain).
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Applications

Sensor MAC Requirements

High energy efficiency (High Throughput/energy Ratio) High channel utilization (High throughput) Low latency Reliability Scalability Robustness and adaptability to changes

Channel conditions (highly time varying) Sensor node failure (energy depletion, environmental changes) High clock drift

MAC Energy Usage

Four important sources of wasted energy in WSN: Idle Listening (required for all CSMA protocols) Overhearing (since RF is a broadcast medium) Collisions (Hidden Terminal Problem) Control Overhead (e.g. RTS/CTS or DATA/ACK)
Existing MAC Protocols (SMAC, B-MAC)

Our work: Z-MAC

Medium Access Paradigms

Contention Based (CSMA) Random-backoff and carrier-sensing Simple, no time synch, and robust to network changes High control overhead (for two-hop collision avoidance) High idle listening and overhearing overheads
Solve this by duty cycling

TDMA Based (or Schedule based) Nodes within interference range transmit during different times, so collision free Requires time synch and not robust to changes. Low throughput and high latency even during low contention. Low idle listening and overhearing overheads
Wake up and listen only during its neighbor transmission
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Effective Throughput
CSMA vs. TDMA
IDEAL

CSMA Channel Utilization

Do not use any topology or time synch. Info. Thus, more robust to time synch. errors and changes.

TDMA

Sensitive to Time synch. errors, Topology changes, Slot assignment errors.

# of Contenders
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Existing approaches

Hybird (CSMA + TDMA)

SMAC by Ye, Heidemann and Estrin @ USC

Duty cycled, but synchronized over macro time scales for neighbor communication

CSMA+Duty Cycle+LPL

BMAC by Polastre, Hill and Culler @ UC Berkeley

Duty cycled, but Low power listen - clever way reducing energy consumption (similar to aloha preamble sampling)

S-MAC Design
listen
Listen Period Sleep/Wake schedule synchronization with neighbors Receive packets from neighbors Sleep Period

sleep

listen

sleep

Turn OFF radio

Set timer to wake up later Transmission Send packets only during listen period of intended receiver(s) Collision Handling RTS/CTS/DATA/ACK
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S-MAC Design
Schedules can differ, prefer neighboring nodes to have same schedule
Node 1 Node 2
listen sleep listen sleep sleep

listen

listen

sleep

Border nodes may have to maintain more than one schedule.

Schedule 1
Schedule 2

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B-MAC: Basic Concepts

Keep core MAC simple

Provides basic CSMA access Optional link level ACK, no link level RTS/CTS

CSMA backoffs configurable by higher layers

Carrier sensing using Clear Channel Assessment (CCA)

Sleep/Wake scheduling using Low Power Listening (LPL)

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Clear Channel Assessment

A packet arrives between 22 and 54ms. The middle graph shows the output of a thresholding CCA algorithm. ( 1: channel clear, 0: channel busy)

- Before transmission take a sample of the channel - If the sample is below the current noise floor, channel is clear, send immediately. - If five samples are taken, and no outlier found => channel busy, take a random backoff - Noise floor updated when channel is known to be clear e.g. just after packet transmission
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Low Power Listening

Check Interval Receiver Sender Long Preamble Carrier sense Receive data Data Tx

Similar to ALOHA preamble sampling

Wake up every Check-Interval Sample Channel using CCA If no activity, go back to sleep for Check-Interval

Else start receiving packet

Preamble > Check-Interval

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Low Power Listening

Check Interval Receiver Sender Long Preamble Carrier sense

Receive data
Data Tx

Longer Preamble => Longer Check Interval, nodes can sleep longer
At the same time, message delays and chances of collision also increase

Length of Check Interval configurable by higher layers

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Z-MAC: Basic Idea - Can you do the contention resolution in Hybrid?

MAC CSMA TDMA Channel Utilization
Low Contention High Low High Contention Low High

Z-MAC a Hybrid MAC protocol combines the strengths of both CSMA and TDMA at the same time offsetting their weaknesses. Z-MAC uses a base TDMA schedule as a hint to schedule the transmissions of the nodes, and it differs from TDMA by allowing non-owners of slots to 'steal' the slot from owners if they are not transmitting. High channel efficiency and fair (quality of service)
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Effective Throughput
CSMA vs. TDMA
IDEAL

Channel Utilization

TDMA

CSMA # of Contenders
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Z-MAC: Basic components

Baseline - CSMA Use Imprecise Topology and Timing Info in a robust way.

Combining CSMA with TDMA

Scalable and Efficient TDMA scheduling

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TDMA Scheduling

Two nodes in the interference range assigned to different time slots. Owners and non-owners
E A C D F Radio Interference Map A C B Input Graph D F B 1 DRAND slot assignment 3 2 D C 1 E F 0

1/7
0 A

2/7 3/7
5/7

4/7

6/7
5 6 7

7/7

Time slice Time period 19

Z-MAC Transmission Control

Busy Owner Accessing Channel

Busy

Owner Accessing Channel

Random Backoff (Contention Window)

Busy

To

Non-owner Accessing Channel

Busy

To

Non-owner Accessing Channel

Random Backoff (Contention Window)

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Z-MAC Transmission Control (Continued)

TDMA and Z-MAC under high contention (Two node example) A A A B B B A A A B B B

TDMA under no contention (Two node example) A A A A A A

Z-MAC under no contention (Two node example) A A A A A A A A A A A A

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DRAND
Z-MAC requires a conflict-free transmission schedule or a TDMA schedule. DRAND is a distributed TDMA scheduling scheme. Let G = (V, E) be an input graph, where V is the set of nodes and E the set of edges. An edge e = (u, v) exists if and only if u and v are within interference range. Given G, DRAND calculates a TDMA schedule in time linear to the maximum node degree in G. DRAND is fully distributed, and is the first scalable implementation of RAND, a famous centralized channel scheduling scheme.

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DRAND AlgorithmE
A C B Radio Interference Map D F

A C B D

0 A B 1

2 C

3 D

1 E

Input Graph

DRAND slot assignment

F 0

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DRAND Algorithm Successful Round

B F E G A B C D Step II Receive Grants B A G
Grant

F E G

Request

C D

Step I Broadcast Request B F A

Release

C D

C D

Two Hop Release

Step III Broadcast Release

Step IV Broadcast Two Hop Release

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DRAND Algorithm Unsuccessful Round

B F E
Grant
Grant

B
Reject

F E G

Request

C D

C D

Step I Broadcast Request B A C D

Fail

Step II Receive Grants from A,B,D but Reject from E F E G

Step III Broadcast Fail

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Simple Analysis (# of rounds)

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Performance Results
DRAND and ZMAC have been implemented on both NS2 and on Mica2 motes (Software can be downloaded from: http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/rhee/export/zmac/index.html) Platform: Mica2 8-bit CPU at 4MHz 8KB flash, 256KB RAM 916MHz radio TinyOS event-driven

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Experimental Setup Single Hop

Single-Hop Experiments: Mica2 motes equidistant from one node in the middle. All nodes within one-hop transmission range. Tests repeated 10 times and average/standard deviation errors reported.

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Z-MAC Two-Hop Experiments

Setup Two-Hop

Dumbbell shaped topology

Transmission power varied between low (50) and high (150) to get two-hop situations. Aim See how Z-MAC works when Hidden Terminal Problem manifests itself.

Sources

Sink Sources

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Experimental Setup - Testbed

40 Mica2 sensor motes in Withers Lab. Wall-powered and connected to the Internet via Ethernet ports. Programs uploaded via the Internet, all mote interaction via wireless. Links vary in quality, some have loss rates up to 30-40%. Assymetric links also present (14->15).
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Z-MAC Single-Hop Throughput

Z-MAC

B-MAC

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Z-MAC Two-Hop Throughput

Z-MAC Z-MAC

B-MAC

B-MAC

Low Power

High Power

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Multi Hop Results Throughput

MULTI-HOP

Z-MAC B-MAC

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Fairness (two hop)

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Multi Hop Results Energy Efficiency (KBits/Joule)

Z-MAC HCL

B-MAC

MULTI-HOP

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DRAND Performance Results Run Time

Single-Hop

Multi-Hop (Testbed)

Multi-Hop (NS2)

Round Time Single-Hop

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DRAND Performance Results Message Count and Number of Slots

Multi-Hop (NS2)

Number of Slots Assigned Multi-Hop (NS2) Single Hop

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Overhead (Hidden cost)

Operation Neighbor Discovery DRAND Local Frame Exchange Time Synchronization Average (J) StdDev 0.73 0.0018

4.88
1.33 0.28

3.105
1.39 0.036

Total energy: 7.22 J 0.03% of typical battery (2500mAh, 3V)

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Conclusion

Z-MAC combines the strength of TDMA and CSMA

High throughput independent of contention. Robustness to timing and synchronization failures and radio interference from non-reachable neighbors.
Always falls back to CSMA.

Compared to existing MAC

It outperforms B-MAC under medium to high contention. Achieves high data rate with high energy efficiency.
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Z-MAC
Hybrid MAC for WSN Combine strengths of TDMA and CSMA. Uses the TDMA schedule created by DRAND as a 'hint' to schedule transmissions. The owner of a time-slot always has priority over the nonowners while accessing the medium. Unlike TDMA, non-owners can 'steal' the time-slot when the owners do not have data to send. This enables Z-MAC to switch between CSMA and TDMA depending on the level of contention. Hence, under low contention, Z-MAC acts like CSMA (i.e. high channel utilization and low latency), while under high contention, Z-MAC acts like TDMA (i.e. high channel utilization, fairness and low contention overhead).
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Z-MAC Local Frames

After DRAND, each node needs to decide on frame size. Conventional wisdom Synchronize with rest of the network on Maximum Slot Number (MSN) as the frame size. Disadvantage: MSN has to broadcasted across whole network. Unused slots if neighbourhood small, e.g. A and B would have to maintain frame size of 8, in spite of having small neighbourhood.

E 1(5)

F 3(5) A B C D 2(5) 0(5) 0(2) 1(2) Label is the assigned slot, number in parenthesis is maximum slot number within two hops G 4(5) H 5(5)
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Z-MAC Local Frames

Time Frame Rule (TF Rule) Let node i be assigned to slot si, according to DRAND and MSN within two hop neighbourhood be Fi, then i's time frame is set to be 2a, where positive integer a is chosen to satisfy condition 2a-1 <= Fi < 2a 1 In other words, i uses the si-th slot in every 2a time frame (i's slots are L * 2a + si, for all L=1,2,3,...)

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Z-MAC Local Frames

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Z-MAC Transmission Control

Slot Ownership

If current timeslot is the node's assigned time-slot, then it is the Owner, and all other neighbouring nodes are NonOwners.
Low Contention Level Nodes compete in all slots, albeit with different priorities. Before transmitting: if I am the Owner take backoff = Random(To) else if I am Non-Owner take backoff = To + Random(Tno) after backoff, sense channel, if busy repeat above, else send.

Switches between CSMA and TDMA automatically depending on contention level

Performance depends on specific values of To and Tno From analysis, we use To = 8 and Tno = 32 for best performance

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Z-MAC LCL

Problem Hidden Terminal Collisions

Although LCL effectively reduces collisions within one hop, hidden terminal could still manifest itself when two hops are involved.

C 2(2)
Time Slots A(0) B(1) Collision at C
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0(2) A 0 1

B 1(2) 2 0

Z-MAC HCL

High Contention Level If in HCL mode, node can compete in current slot only if: It is owner of the slot OR It is one-hop neighbour to the owner of the slot

C 2(2) Time Slots A(0) B(1)

Slot in HCL, sleep till next time slot

0(2) A
0 1

B 1(2) 2
0

Collisions still possible here

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Z-MAC Explicit Contention Notification

ECN Informs all nodes within two-hop neighbourhood not to send during its time-slot.

When a node receives ECN message, it sets its HCL flag.

ECN is sent by a node if it experiences high contention. High contention detected by lost ACKs or congestion backoffs. On receiving one-hop ECN from i, forward two-hop ECN if it is on the routing path from i. ECN Suppression HCL flag is soft state, so reset periodically Nodes need to resend ECN if high contention persists. To prevent ECN implosion, if ECN message received from one-hop neighbour, cancel one's own pending ECN message.
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Z-MAC Explicit Contention Notification

C experiences high contention
Thick Line Routing Path Dotted Line ECN Messages

C broadcasts one-hop ECN message to A, B, D. A, B not on routing path (C->D->F), so discard ECN. D on routing path, so it forwards ECN as two-hop ECN message to E, F.

forward
D forward

C
A discard

E
B discard

Now, E and F will not compete during C's slot as Non-Owners. A, B and D are eligible to compete during C's slot, albeit with lesser priority as NonOwners.

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Z-MAC Performance Results

Setup

Single-hop, Two-hop and Multi-hop topology experiments on Mica2 motes.

Comparisons with B-MAC, default MAC of Mica2, with different backoff window sizes.

Metrics: Throughput, Energy, Latency, Fairness

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Z-MAC Performance Results Throughput, Fairness

Setup Single-Hop 20 Mica2 motes equidistant from a sink All nodes send as fast as they can throughput, fairness measured at the sink. Before starting, made sure that all motes are within one-hop

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Z-MAC Energy Experiments

Setup

10 nodes within single cell sending to one sink

Find optimum (lowest) energy to get a given throughput at the sink

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Z-MAC Performance Results Energy

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Z-MAC Latency Experiments

Setup

10 nodes in a chain topology.

Source at one end transmits 100 byte packets at rate of 1 packet/10 s towards sink at the other end. Packet arrival time observed at each intermediate node, average per-hop latency calculated and then reported for different duty cycles.

Source

Sink

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Multi Hop Results

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Multi Hop Results

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Z-MAC Performance Results Latency

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Z-MAC a Hybrid MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks

Q&A
Thank you for your participation
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LPL Check Interval

Too small Energy wasted on Idle Listening Too large Energy wasted on packet transmission (large preamble) In general, longer check interval is better.

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