Achieving robustness through caching and retransmissions in IEEE 802.15.4-based WSNs

This paper proposes a network-layer protocol for wireless sensor networks based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Our protocol is devised to provide reliable data gathering in latency-constrained applications, and exploits both the flexibility of the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC layer and features of data aggregation techniques, such as implicit acknowledgment of reception. The proposed protocol acts as a routing module and a control entity for the MAC layer and provides reliable communication, while managing power saving and synchronizertion among nodes. Without relying on MAC-layer acknowledgments, the protocol implements caching and network-layer retransmissions, triggered upon detection of a link failure. The performance of the proposed approach is studied through simulations, in which we evaluate the achieved reliability and the energy consumption with varying network settings.