Throughput Enhancement for Wireless Sensor Network Based on Network Allocation Vector Caching Algorithms
Baofeng Ji, Lifan Sun, Chunguo Li, Congcheng Han and Hong Wen
A wireless sensor network is a wireless network consisting of spatially distributed autonomous devices using sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions. The wireless protocols selected in practical application contain IEEE802.15.4 or IEEE 802.11(Wi-Fi) standards or proprietary radios. This paper proposes a novel protocol based on wireless sensor networks (IEEE 802.15.4) to investigate the throughput enhancement algorithms. Its conventional carrier sensing mechanism of the sensor networks comes with several drawbacks especially in the scenarios of bandwidth expansion. To remedy the conventional carrier sensing mechanism, namely, redundant or useless network allocation vector (NAV) settings, we propose a two-level NAV caching algorithm. The proposed caching algorithm necessitates relatively little modification to the current sensor network standard while significantly improving its performance. We theoretically analyzed the algorithm to determine the formulas of the achieved gain; the numerical results confirm our algorithms feasibility and effectiveness, and further indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional mechanism in regards to throughput gain.