International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET)

Volume 8, Issue 11, November 2017, pp. 394–402, Article ID: IJMET_08_11_044
Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=8&IType=11
ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359

© IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed

TOWARDS AN ENHANCED EFFICIENT CROSS

LAYER PROTOCOL (EECLAP) FOR WIRELESS
SENSOR NETWORKS
Geetha.M, J.Prassanna, M.Nivedita and Prabhakaran.R
School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT University, Chennai, India

ABSTRACT
Now a day’s wireless sensor networks are widely used for real time applications
like patient health monitoring, military Environmental/earth monitoring etc.., so
energy must be used more efficiently. In this paper, we proposed EECLAP (Enhanced
Efficient cross layer protocol) protocol and this can be done by using cross layer and
it consists of MAC, physical, network and this uses routing protocol for transmission
of energy efficiently by maintaining the transmission power between two nodes and to
maintain the nodes neighboring table and EECLAP pioneer control frames is used
for energy efficiency. This proposed EECLAP with PION control frames along with
neighbor tables is implemented by using Ns2 simulator by comparing with normal
AODV routing protocol based on energy and latency constraints.
Keywords: cross layer design, energy-efficiency, MAC Protocol, Routing protocol,
pioneer
Cite this Article: Geetha.M, J.Prassanna, M.Nivedita and Prabhakaran.R, Towards an
Enhanced Efficient Cross Layer Protocol (Eeclap) for Wireless Sensor Networks,
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 8(11), 2017,
pp. 394–402.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=8&IType=11

1. INTRODUCTION
Wireless sensor networks, WSN [2][5][6] are used to communicate to greater distances. The
WSN networks will consist of nodes which are used for sensing or monitoring the events
like temperature, sound etc. And mostly sensors are event-driven i.e. whenever an event
occurs only it passes the information.
In WSN communication it is done through the nodes, where they transfer the
information through the routing path to reach the destination. In a network, there are a
number of nodes and the energy for the nodes depends on their batteries. Initially, all the
nodes will have the same energy. When there is a communicating between nodes, only some
nodes are used for the routing, the rest of the nodes will be wasting their energy being
switched on. The energy consumption will be high [8][9].

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 Towards an Enhanced Efficient Cross Layer Protocol (Eeclap) for Wireless Sensor Networks

This routing will be done in the cross-layer [1], when the retransmission due to collision
happens in that instance the cross-layer is used effectively. In t h e OSI model for each
layer have certain boundaries and when it has to contact with a physical layer through t h e
network layer which is only possible via data link layer. Skipping these 2 layers is not
possible unlike in OSI, cross-layer will not contain boundaries, and whenever problems occur
it will directly go through all the layers present in OSI model.

Figure 1 OSI Model

Figure 2 Simple Cross-layer

In cross layer, additional neighboring table m e ch an i s m is used. This consists of
information about nearest nodes and energy levels of each n o d e . The neighboring table is
used because in routing protocol, it is difficult to constantly check for nearest neighbor
node addresses and the node with less energy for the transmission. Since the neighboring
table makes communication faster and identifying energy efficient nodes easily. Hence it is
used for routing purpose [7].
Patient monitoring system in hospitals is highly needful for doctors to do timely health
monitoring and health tracking of the patients. Such a serious job needs a constant and
seamless high technology assisted accurate monitoring system. To make such a system more
efficient the WSN enables the doctors from anywhere can check the patient's status.
In the patient monitoring system, the existing protocol uses RTS/CTS for energy
efficiency at one point in time when the sink node wants information from more than one
patient. A particular intermediate node will transfer information from sink node to destination.
Doctor/user doesn’t know whether the information has transferred or not. At that point, all the
nodes should maintain equal energy which leads to more energy consumption. When a node
that is present in between the routes from the sink node to the destination has to transfer many
numbers of information’s from different sink nodes may engage with collision among
themselves as a result information loss may occurs. The collision is a situation which occurs
when a single node is to transfer many messages and they all collide with each other. During
this phase the collision node loses its energy due to retransmission or due to waiting time

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 Geetha.M, J.Prassanna, M.Nivedita and Prabhakaran.R

because of waiting for other nodes still it becomes free. This leads to high power
consumption.
To overcome the problem, Pioneer is introduced to reduce particularly the energy
consumption problem caused due to waiting for the transmission to be received in RTS/CTS.
Advantages of pioneer protocol are
• Information delivers to destination sure short.
• Identification of route in which information transferred to destination.
• Identification of number of nodes required that are used to transfer information
• Acknowledgement message that says information reached destination successfully.
Pioneer is used for efficiently pass the information to the destination faster. The
advantages of using pioneer will find the efficient route in which the information can pass and
how many intermediate nodes are required to pass that information. In addition to it the
conformation message would receive once the information reached successfully.

2. BACKGROUND
There exist many protocols for using energy efficiently in WSN’s and the protocols follows
different techniques to use energy efficiently. Some of the protocols are discussed below with
their limitations.

2.1 ECLAP Protocol [1]:

In this protocol the cross layer technology, which is adapted with neighbor table is
maintained for energy efficiently.
When the communication between any sink node and relaying node are taking place, the
except nodes which are not used for the communication will go to sleep mode and for setting
the routing path the neighbor table is used efficiently. Along with neighboring table
RTS/CTS (Request to send/Clear to send) is also used for eliminating the collision.

2.1.1. Working of RTS/CTS:

At first, all the nodes will be in the sleep state. This can be explained by an example figure 3.
Consider three nodes x, y, z. When an event occurs x node will take information and it wake
up the y node and sends the RTS to y node. It will check if y is free and then y sends CTS as a
confirmation that it is free. Now x receives the CTS that means y is free and x node sends the
data to y node. After receiving the data y will send the acknowledgement if data is received
successfully otherwise it will request for retransmission after y node wakes up the z node
same process will be done similar to how information passed between x and y. In this fashion
communicate is takes place between the nodes. This is shown clearly in below figure 3.

Figure 3 RTS/CTS Working

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 Towards an Enhanced Efficient Cross Layer Protocol (Eeclap) for Wireless Sensor Networks

But the disadvantage in ECLAP is after x sends the RTS it has to be in wake up state
until it receives the CTS from y. In the same way, y node has to wait until the data from x
node will come .here no need of x node and y node has to be in wake up when they are
not having worked so, energy will be consumed more.

2.2. R-MAC Protocol [3]:

In order to reduce delivery time of data transmission (RTS/CTS cycle time) between two
nodes with a duty cycle, the protocol should be able to send the data frames from multiple
hops in the single operation cycle. An operation cycle of a sensor node in this protocol is
described in SYNC, DATA and SLEEP stages. In SYNC period, it synchronizes the clocks.
When a data packet is to be sent to a destination node that sends the message from multiple
hops away, a control frame is sent to respective nodes during the data period for start the
communication between nodes. In that protocol instead of RTS/CTS frames, we use series of
control frames called as PION. A PION is used as RTS/CTS frames. The main importance
of this protocol is a node transmits single PION for confirmation of routing path between
two nodes.

Working of PION Control Frames:

Source node ‘S’ sends the data to the destination. In that time source node first takes the
transmission period from the contention window f or transmit the information and waits for
the channel to be free for that transmission period and takes time period for a node to node
communication (DIFS) period before sending. The PION includes all the information about
the node address, previous node address and destination address and some cross layer
information. In that, A node receives S’s PION, if not A is the final destination, A pick up
next hop address for further transmission. In that time A then waits a SIFS (Short interface
framing space) period before transmitting the own PION, when t h e node is free.

Figure 4 Pioneer Working

During the transmission, the packet length will be idle and this transmission t i m e is
taken by t h e contention window will be same in the total network. This is not more efficient
in multi hop because during transmission in multi hop nodes will contain different
transmission times of packets will come from different nodes and there is a chance for
occurrence of collision of information so it is used efficiently in the single hop.

2.3. S-MAC Protocol [4]:

In SMAC protocol uses RTS/CTS. When information transfers, sender node sends the RTS
to the other node before that it picks up the time taken for total transmission from the
contention window. After sending it the intermediate nodes goes to the sleep state. Then the
receiver node receives the RTS and it has to send confirmation message about whether the
node is free or not in the form of CTS frame. And after sending CTS it also goes to the sleep
state. This can be explained clearly by the following example consider 3 nodes x,y,z. X node

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 Geetha.M, J.Prassanna, M.Nivedita and Prabhakaran.R

sends RTS to Y node then X node go to sleep mode state and wakes up a completion of a
random period and then after receiving RTS y node has to send CTS to X. Then after y goes
to sleep after y wakes up the completion of random time. In the data sending and
acknowledgment process works same as above process.

Figure 5 RTS/CTS Working in S-mac

The disadvantage in this protocol is that, it is difficult to find whether the node is in a
sleep state or it is in active state because the length of the packet will be varied for different
types of messages. It will not remain constant.

3. PROPOSED SYSTEM:
In the proposed protocol we are using cross layer technology and for the routing path setting
the neighbor is used. Additional with PION is used instead of RTS/CTS.

Working of Propose Protocol:

The relying node must be in a position to estimate the time at which data frame transmission
begins and when it goes to terminate simultaneously, it should predict the arrival of data from
posterior node (hop 0) based on Data Frame duration and Hop count carried in the respective
PION. It should make sure that no collisions should take place with PION transmissions. A
delay time Td is calculated based on the formula () delay time is induced at relaying node and
tends to be in a wait mode till the delay time expires. As time slice expires relaying node
becomes active and starts to pump and receive data. This process eliminates the collisions
with other PION transmissions. Likewise, at each and every node must able to calculate delay
time and carry transmissions based on its delay time for collision free transmissions of data
frames. Path length is a key aspect in calculating the delay time. If the path length is equal to
1 then delay time equals with Short Inter Frame Spacing.

Figure 6 Proposed Pioneer System

If Td=1 then Td=SIFS
If Td > 1 then Td = SIFS +d*(Tp+SIFS)
The correspondence to data delay factor calculated by hop-0 node leased on network
characteristics. Upon the selection of hop-0 node conveys other nodes along the path
regarding the selection of Td. Tp gives the time taken to transmit a single pion. In a case
where path length is 1, downstream hop doesn’t exist and there won’t us any collision with

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 Towards an Enhanced Efficient Cross Layer Protocol (Eeclap) for Wireless Sensor Networks

downstream PION. In such a case hop-0 node sets the data delay factor to zero and let the
neighbor nodes aware of this change through the neighbor table and hence the node which
originating PION is now been set.
If path length>1, the node which originates PION compute the Td value. When hop-1
node starts receiving data from un-delaying node (hop-0) and has to ensure all the nodes are at
least (d+1) hops away. When Td< Tp in this case a slight modification has to mode by adding
(Tp-Td) to the calculated Td PION is considered to be slightly larger than ACK frame PION
frame relaying will never be interrupt by data frame relaying process even in the case of very
small data frame relaying process because data frame relaying process over a hop if composed
of data transmission, SIFS time and transmission of an ACK

Figure 7 Algorithm for the EECLAP Protocol

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 Geetha.M, J.Prassanna, M.Nivedita and Prabhakaran.R

In this paper we discussed how to use energy efficiently in wireless networks (WSN’S)
using pioneer mechanism. In the existing systems, they have used RTS/CTS for using energy
efficiently but some disadvantages are thereby using RTS/CTS and this disadvantage is
overcome by using pioneer , which uses energy efficiently as well as speed of transmission
will be increased( latency).
For using the energy efficiently the proposed pioneer mechanisms used .To show this
protocol is more efficient than other mechanisms comparison with S-MAC and ECLAP
protocols. EECLAP with PION has to be implemented by using Ns2 simulator and
performance evolution has to be done by comparing with other protocols.

4. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF PROPOSED SYSTEM:

For analyzing the performance of the EECLAP protocol Ns2 simulator is used here. By using
Ns2 simulator, 50 nodes are deployed in the simulation environment. In this network design,
energy model is added by using AODV routing protocol for finding the energy information of
every node which includes in the routing path. For finding efficient routing path neighbor
table mechanism implemented in AODV protocol. In this neighbor table nearest neighbor
node and that node capable energy is loaded. After that event driven sensors are added to the
simulator environment by using MannaSim.
For proposed EECLAP protocol, pioneer control frames are implemented in the wireless
MAC layer for decreasing the latency between two nodes while they are communicating using
Ns2 simulator by removing normal RTS/CTS mechanism.

Simulation Parameters:
In wireless sensor networks, many protocols will be there. To analyses which protocol is
suitable for our application many parameters are used. For analyzing the EECLAP protocol
two parameters are used they are energy consumption (in mj), latency (sec).

Simulation Results:
In the normal wireless sensor network by using MAC layer with an AODV routing protocol
network with 50 nodes is designed. Their performance evaluation is as shown in figure 8. By
making some changes in AODV protocol and adding EECLAP protocol instead of MAC
layer is implemented in the same wireless sensor network. Their performance characteristics
are as shown in figure 9.

Figure 8 Plotted graph for AODV Routing protocol

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 Towards an Enhanced Efficient Cross Layer Protocol (Eeclap) for Wireless Sensor Networks

Figure 9 Plotted graph EECLAP protocol with neighbor table

In this simulation graphs, it is shown that how much energy is consumed with respect to a
particular time.
By seeing the performances of above two networks we can say that with RTS/CTS
consumes more energy compared with the EECLAP protocol with PION. For future work,
cross layer information has to be added to the pioneer control frames. For that pioneer control
frames also has to be modified for avoiding collision between packets transmission compared
to normal pioneer control frame. Resultant EECLAP protocol has to be compared with SMAC
and ECLAP protocols based on energy and latency parameters.

5. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we discussed how to use energy efficiently in wireless networks (WSN’S) using
pioneer mechanism. In the existing systems, they have used RTS/CTS for using energy
efficient, but some disadvantages are thereby using RTS/CTS and this disadvantage is
overcome by using pioneer ,which uses energy efficiency as well as the speed of transmission
will be increased( latency).
For using the energy efficiently the proposed pioneer mechanisms used .To show this
protocol is more efficient than other mechanisms, comparison with S-MAC and ECLAP
protocols. EECLAP with PION has to be implemented using Ns2 simulator and performance
evaluation has to be done by comparing with other protocols.

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