Power and performance tradeoff of MAC protocol for wireless sensor network employing UAV

Sensor networks have applications that have spread widely in various fields of the industry; and one of the most useful applications is data collection. Specifically, the data collection for large areas has become critical in commercial industry, science, and academic researches. However, the existing relevant MAC protocols have shown their unsuitability to apply for these systems. In our previous study, we have proposed the Prioritized Frame Selection based CDMA MAC (PFSC-MAC) protocol for this kind of system. However, in the proposed study, we applied common parameters for the channels between the UAV and the sensors, and concerned on the optimal conditions for operating the UAV and the sensor network at a fix flare angle of the UAV´s antenna. In this paper, we accurately apply the practical characteristics of these channels. In addition, we consider the optimal flare angles of the antenna on the UAV by finding a tradeoff between the sensor´s power consumption and Packet-Error-Rate (PER) at certain conditions. These conditions are the outputs of the previous paper. In conclusion, we provide the various options for the system that can possibly obtain the best performance at specific conditions.