D-TDMA: An Approach of Dynamic TDMA Scheduling for Target Tracking in Wireless Sensor Networks

In the application of target tracking based on dynamic convey tree-based collaboration (DCTC) in wireless sensor networks, collisions and interferences among nodes pose a challenge for data aggregation. In this paper, we refine slot allocation to the nodes in dynamic convey tree and design an energy efficient MAC protocol called D-TDMA, which avoids collisions and interferences and allocates contiguous active slots to nodes as far as possible during data aggregation from leaf nodes to a root node. As a result, the energy consumption in switching from sleeping to active state is saved. Simulation results show that D-TDMA not only gets rid of the impact of collisions and interferences among nodes in dynamic convey tree, but also performs similar throughput to that of CSMA-like mechanism where nodes work without active/sleep scheduling strategy. Our protocol outperforms ESR in both energy efficiency and low delay.