A sleep-scheduling scheme for enhancing QoS and network coverage in IEEE 802.15.4 WSN

Many Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications operate autonomously in unreliable or inaccessible environments, precluding maintenance or human intervention. Redundant deployment schemes are usually considered in this scenario, making the network resilient to failure and environmental changes. Furthermore, sleep-scheduling techniques can also be applied, enabling redundant nodes to turn off their radios, while active nodes perform monitoring services. This paper investigates the behavior of the (m, k)-Gur Game approach. The main goal of the (m, k)-Gur Game is to provide an uniform network coverage for monitoring applications, with autonomic nodes performing a self-regulated choice between sending message to a base station or sleep until the next period. The proposal was evaluated using the OMNeT++ simulator tool under the MiXiM framework. Preliminary results shows that the (m, k)-Gur Game outperforms the traditional GurGame approach in terms of QoS provision and network coverage.