The performance of genetic algorithms in medium access control protocols for wireless sensor networks
Date
2016-04
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Abstract
This paper evaluates the performance of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)
scheme, a genetic algorithm, as used in Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In doing so, the protocol is implemented and compared
to round-robin, a contention-free protocol that makes sensor nodes take turns in sending
their data packet to the sink, and a p-persistent CSMA protocol with a p-value of 0.01. The
concept of p-persistence as used in the CSMA protocol is employed to tweak the PSO
scheme to form a fourth protocol that is used in the evaluation process. All four protocols
are simulated in OMNET++, a network simulator, and performance analysis is done based
on the throughput and transmission delays of the various protocols. It was discovered that
the PSO scheme performed poorly in terms of throughput in highly populated networks with
high traffic. The modified PSO scheme with p-persistence performed better than the original
PSO scheme in terms of throughput for densely populated networks with high traffic. On
low populated networks with low traffic, the original PSO scheme showed the best
throughput performance. Round-robin displayed higher throughput performance than the
other three protocols for both low and high traffic networks with a high node population.
Description
Applied project submitted to the Department of Computer Science, Ashesi University College, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, April 2016
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Applied project
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Keywords
Particle swarm optimization (PSO), Wireless Sensor Networks, Medium access control (MAC)