M-GCF: Multicolor-Green Conflict Free scheduling algorithm for WSN

Applications for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasing in numbers and are penetrating in areas of increasing importance. The requirements of these applications can only be fulfilled with efficient medium access control (MAC) layer protocols and this paper presents a cluster-based time division multiple access (TDMA) scheduling algorithm, Multicolor-Green Conflict Free (M-GCF), for WSNs. The proposed algorithm finds multiple conflict free slots across a three-hop neighbor view. The algorithm shows better slot sharing with fewer conflicts along with good energy efficiency, throughput and delay as compared with state-of-the-art solutions. The results also include the performance of M-GCF with varying traffic rates, which also shows good energy efficiency, throughput and delay. The contribution of this paper and the main reason for the improved performance with varying number of nodes and traffic rate is the multicoloring approach used.