A new buffer management solution to improve the performance of mac layer in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is an autonomous network that detects physical changes in an environment and reports the relevant information to a central point for further investigation. WSNs are an important type of resource-constrained distributed systems. There are many limitations on the sensor nodes such as: energy, memory, computation capability, storage, transmission range and etc. All these limitations make efficiency and effectiveness very important and highly demanded features for WSNs. In this study, buffer management mechanisms that can be utilized on sensor nodes at different communication layers were examined using mathematical analyses and simulations. In this context, a new mathematical model was introduced and various number of simulations were performed in order to show whether conventional buffer management solutions are appropriate for WSNs. The results obtained from simulations were compared with each other and the proposed our new mathematical model. Through the investigations of buffer management solutions for WSNs the usage of memory and its optimality was tried to be come out. It was found that conventional buffer management solutions are not appropriate for WSNs and they don't satisfy WSN specific needs. The utilization of buffer either would be sub-optimal or the prioritization between packets could not be supported in these buffer management approaches. There is a clear need a new approach for buffer management in WSNs. In here, we propose a novel buffer management solution that improves the general performance of Medium Access Control (MAC) layer plans, in particular those crafted for WSNs. The success of our proposed solution were discussed and it was compared with other well-known buffer management solutions. The comparison results in different plots are presented in this study.