Intelligent MAC protocol for efficient support of multiple SOPs in UWB-based sensor networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) technique has been considered as a possible candidate for high rate Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) because of its higher capacity with low power operation. The IEEE 802.15.3 Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol works on a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) basis within a piconet. With multiple overlapped piconets, the current protocol uses Parent/ Child (P/C) or Parent /Neighbor (P/N) configuration to avoid inter-piconet interference, but the throughput of P/N or P/C cannot exceed that of single piconet. In this paper we propose an intelligent MAC protocol to cooperate with the UWB system based on Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA). The proposed protocol uses Intermediate Sensor Device (ISDEV) to connect Piconet Coordinators and adaptively arrange 2 simultaneous data transmission links during each Channel Time Allocation (CTA). Our simulation results demonstrate the proposed scheme can achieve a higher throughput with an acceptable compromise at link success probability in multiple overlapped sensor networks.