Dynamic active period control achieving low energy consumption and low latency in multi-hop wireless sensor networks

IEEE 802.15.4 beacon-enabled mode can use the superframe structure for data transmission. In using the superframe structure, the duty cycle of the wireless personal area network defined by the values of the beacon order (BO) and superframe order (SO) can be adjusted in order to achieve high channel utilization and low power consumption. The optimum values of BO and SO vary according to the network condition. The present paper proposes a novel method that achieves low power consumption and low latency in a multi-hop wireless sensor network. In the proposed method, active periods in the superframe structure are appropriately assigned to routing nodes according to the network topology prior to data transmission, and the values of SO are dynamically adjusted depending on the traffic load. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.