Improve performance of MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks based on learning automata

Wireless sensor networks have become a leading solution in many important applications such as intrusion detection, target tracking, industrial automation, smart building, etc. In most applications of wireless sensor networks, there is no the possibility of charging the battery of nodes, so protocols designed for these networks should at least be energy-efficient. In wireless sensor networks, to reduce energy consumption in idle listening mode, duty-cycle is widely used. In this paper, we have developed a media access control protocol based on learning automata that is called LA-MAC, in which nodes regulate their activity period using learning automata and based on feedback from network and reduce energy consumption. We compared LA-MAC protocol with SMAC, SMACS. This comparison is done by software NS2 and simulation shows efficiency of proposed protocol in terms of energy consumption and delay. In addition, proposed protocol shows good efficiency in dense and dynamic networks

Keywords:

wireless sensor network , Medium access control protocol , learning automata , S-mac , energy efficiency