Providing QoS guarantees to multiple classes of traffic in wireless sensor networks

Recent advances in miniaturization and low power design have led to a flurry of activity in wireless sensor networks. However, the introduction of real time communication has created additional challenges in this area. The sensor node spends most of its life in routing packets from one node to another until the packet reaches the sink In other words, we can say that it is functioning as a small router most of the time. Since sensor networks deal with time-critical applications, it is often necessary for communication to meet real time constraints. However, research dealing with providing QoS guarantees for real time traffic in sensor networks is still in its infancy. In this paper, an analytical model for implementing Priority Queueing (PQ) in a sensor node to calculate the queueing delay is presented. The model is based on M/D/l queueing system (a special class of M/G/l queueing systems). Here, two different classes of traffic are considered. The exact packet delay for corresponding classes is calculated. Further, the analytical results are validated through an extensive simulation study.