Performance analysis of sequential detection for collision avoidance in sensor networks

Many of today´s wireless sensor networks operate under the strict requirement that only a single sensor transmits data at a time. One way to guarantee this is to use protocols that detect and prevent package collisions on the MAC layer. These, however, come at the cost of increased transmission delays, reduced throughput and higher energy consumption. We propose a PHY layer approach to collision avoidance that is based on sequential detection and significantly reduces the risk of collisions while simultaneously minimizing the transmission delay. For this approach, a performance analysis is given whose results are shown to closely match numerical simulations.