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RTS-MAC: A Relative Time Synchronization MAC Protocol for Low Duty Cycle Body Sensor Networks

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Abstract

Emerging applications in the medical field require body sensor networks to communicate in real-time in a very energy-efficient way. An example is the Artificial Accommodation System—a set of two small active medical implants aiming at restoring accommodation of the human eye—in which sensor data have to be exchanged continuously between both eyes. To achieve energy efficiency, it is essential to operate the radios with a very low duty cycle. Therefore, idle listening and general protocol overhead must be reduced as much as possible. In this paper, we present a relative time synchronization medium access control protocol (RTS-MAC), which keeps relative time synchronization between two or more sensor nodes in a very energy-efficient manner: RTS-MAC makes use of the periodic broadcast of regular data messages and exploits the inter-arrival times to predict future arrivals within tight boundaries. Thereby, no overhead is generated for synchronization purposes, and still, idle listening is reduced to a minimum, which solely depends on the short-term accuracy of the underlying clock systems. We implemented the proposed protocol using off-the-shelf components and employed the internal low-accuracy oscillators of the microcontrollers as clock sources. Thereby, we achieved very low duty cycles close to an ideal minimum. Further, our results indicate that through omitting external crystals in favor of a minimally larger battery, the battery life of a sensor node can be prolonged.

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Notes

  1. Most common state-of-the-art transceivers are capable of raising an interrupt if a synchronization word was detected.

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Acknowledgment

Funding of this joint research project (KueAkk, grant no. 16SV3940) by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

    Christoph Beck, Jörg Nagel, Peter Hevesi & Georg Bretthauer

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  1. Christoph Beck
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  2. Jörg Nagel
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  3. Peter Hevesi
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  4. Georg Bretthauer
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Correspondence to Christoph Beck.

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Beck, C., Nagel, J., Hevesi, P. et al. RTS-MAC: A Relative Time Synchronization MAC Protocol for Low Duty Cycle Body Sensor Networks. Int J Wireless Inf Networks 19, 163–172 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-012-0185-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-012-0185-1

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