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ICT Express 3 (2017) 101–105
www.elsevier.com/locate/icte

Priority-based queuing and transmission rate management using a fuzzy

logic controller in WSNs✩
Imen Bouazzi ∗ , Jamila Bhar, Mohamed Atri
Department of physic, Faculty of Science of Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia
Received 25 June 2016; received in revised form 7 December 2016; accepted 17 February 2017
Available online 1 March 2017

Abstract
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) operate under challenging conditions, such as maintaining message latency and the reliability of data trans-
mission and maximizing the battery life of sensor nodes. The aim of this study is to propose a fuzzy logic algorithm for solving these issues,
which are difficult to address with traditional techniques. The idea, in this study, is to employ a fuzzy logic scheme to optimize energy con-
sumption and minimize packet drops. We demonstrated how fuzzy logic can be used to tackle this specific communication problem with minimal
computational complexity. In this context, the implementation of a fuzzy logic in the Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance
(CSMA/CA) mechanism is achieved through filling the queue length and the traffic rate at each node. Through simulations, we show that our
proposed technique has a better performance in terms of energy consumption compared to the basic implementation of CSMA/CA.
⃝c 2017 The Korean Institute of Communications Information Sciences. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under
the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Energy saving; Packet loss; Priority; Queue length; Rate

1. Introduction
The rapid technological advances in wireless communica-
tion systems, low-power digital electronics, small-scale energy
supplies, microprocessors, and low-power radio devices have
now enabled the development of low-power multifunctional
sensor devices for detecting and reacting to changes in their
surrounding environments. These sensor devices have a small
battery, a tiny microprocessor, and a set of transducers for ac-
quiring information that reflects the changes in the surrounding
environment.
The emergence of low-power and minute wireless sensor
devices has fuelled intensive research efforts during the last
decade, which, in turn, has led to the development of wireless
sensor networks (WSNs). Fuzzy logic theory can be used to in-
vestigate queuing phenomena such as the average number of
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: imen.bouazzi@gmail.com (I. Bouazzi).
Peer review under responsibility of The Korean Institute of Communica-
tions Information Sciences.
✩ This paper has been handled by Prof. Jun Heo.
customers and average waiting time in the network from one
perspective and to study traffic stabilization from another per-
spective. Fuzzy queuing and traffic rate control are emerging
areas of research in WSN management. Most of the queuing
models studied in the last three decades have employed a first-
come-first-served (FCFS) service discipline. Nonetheless, this
is evidently not the only way of monitoring; there are also many
other alternatives such as the last-come-first-served service.
In priority schemes, customers with the highest priority are
selected for service ahead of those with lower priority, indepen-
dent of their time of arrival into the network. WSNs perform
under the contradictory requirements of maintaining message
latency and the reliability of data transmissions, while, at the
same time, maximizing the battery life of each single sensor. In
this context, the main goal of our research was to propose an
optimized algorithm that allows priority queuing and transmis-
sion rate management based on a fuzzy logic controller. The
proposed algorithm provides performance measures regarding
the crisp values for the fuzzy priority model with an unreliable
server using two fuzzy variables. The fuzzy variables designed
(queue length and traffic rate) were aimed at giving priority to
nodes that drop packets and consume more energy.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icte.2017.02.001
2405-9595/⃝ c 2017 The Korean Institute of Communications Information Sciences. Publishing Services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
102 I. Bouazzi et al. / ICT Express 3 (2017) 101–105
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 pro-
vides an overview of the related works. In Section 3, the design
of the fuzzy algorithm will be discussed. Section 4 briefly in-
troduces the problem statement. Section 5 evaluates the efficacy
of the proposed technique using simulations. Finally, Section 6
summarizes the paper.
2. Related works
Large number of algorithms for priority control have been
developed based on fuzzy logic systems to enhance the network
performance. In this section, we discuss the works done by
some authors that are related to our research. Ramesh et al. [1]
used a procedure for finding various performance measures in
terms of crisp values for the total expected cost of a fuzzy batch
arrival queuing model using fuzzy numbers such as the arrival
rate, service rate, batch size, service cost, and holding costs.
They transformed a fuzzy queue with batch arrival into a family
of crisp queues and developed a parametric programming
approach for arrival queues with fuzzy parameters. Ashok
Kumar [2] developed a nonlinear programming approach for
deriving the membership functions of steady-state performance
measures in the Erlang service model, where the arrival rate
and service rate are fuzzy numbers. The basic idea is based
on Zadeh’s extension principle. Two pairs of mixed integer
nonlinear programs with binary variables are formulated to
calculate the upper and lower bonds of the system performance.
Chen et al. [3] proposed a dynamic adaptive medium access
control (MAC) algorithm in energy-harvesting WSNs. They
generated a dynamic bound of the backoff window. Hence,
the system can dynamically adjust the parameters of the
slotted CSMA/CA mechanism using a fuzzy algorithm, and the
parameters are also influenced by the energy-harvesting mode
in the node.
Many authors [4–6] used fuzzy queuing to propose a pro-
cedure for finding various performance measures in terms of
crisp values for a fuzzy queuing model with an unreliable server
where the arrival rate, service rate, breakdown rate, and re-
pair rate are all fuzzy numbers. The authors in [7–9] used a
priority-based fuzzy decision packet scheduling algorithm and
a priority-based CSMA/CA mechanism to develop the mem-
bership function of the system performance. They proposed an
algorithm for maximizing the system quality of service (QoS)
through maintaining the time, energy, and packet drop con-
straints.
The priority-based, application-specific congestion control
clustering protocol (PASCC) in Kaur and Kumar et al., [10]
integrates the mobility and heterogeneity of the nodes. PASCC
detects congestion in WSNs based on the type and priority of
the captured data. The cluster heads (CHs) prioritize packets
based on distance; the farther nodes get priority over the nearby
nodes. CHs also make sure that the extra resources consumed
by farther nodes are utilized effectively. During congestion,
prioritized packets are routed to the base station (BS) owing
to their timeliness requirements, and non-prioritized packets
are dropped. PASCC achieves better performance in terms of
network lifetime, energy consumption, data transmission, and
other QoS metrics.
The authors in [11] proposed a priority-based mechanism
that makes a compromise between locally generated data and
transit data. They proposed congestion-aware routing tries for
finding more affordable routes. However, a fuzzy rate controller
is utilized for rate controlling, which uses two criteria as inputs:
buffer occupancy and congestion score.
In this paper, we concentrate on dynamically adjusting
the parameters of CSMA/CA according to the traffic rate
and the queue buffer size. The proposed algorithm will tune
some parameters through a fuzzy logic system based on the
IEEE802.15.4 MAC protocol; the use of this algorithm should
lead to better energy efficiency and throughput.
3. Problem statement
The MAC layer has a control for coordinating channel access
to maximize throughput with an acceptable end-to-end packet
delay and minimal energy consumption. The IEEE 802.15.4
MAC protocol is, in fact, planned to serve a set of applications
with very low power consumption and cost requirement, and
with relaxed needs for data rate and QoS. We propose to
schedule our work with a fuzzy scheme to improve the QoS,
where an implementation of CSMA/CA is included.
We have added a priority level to nodes that want access
to the channel. However, we dynamically adjust the backoff
exponent (BE) value according to the queue length and the
traffic rate of each node. Moreover, we know that, if the traffic
load is greater than the available capacity of the sensor network,
congestion occurs, which causes a buffer overflow, a packet
drop, and a deterioration of network throughput. This is caused
by the whole information circulating between nodes. Wherever
nodes receive more data, the probability of lost information
becomes critical and high. The decisions based on fuzzy logic
can be used for transmission rate management and queue size
assessment.
We classify nodes into three clusters: low priority, medium
priority, and high priority. Nodes in the low-priority cluster
do not have any critical data that should be sent immediately.
Thus, we can increase their BE value to give chance to other
nodes to access the channel. On the other hand, nodes classified
as high priority should send their data first. This is done by
decrementing their default BE value. Medium nodes select a
random value of BE given by the standard. The fuzzy logic
scheme is illustrated in Fig. 1.
4. New design of the fuzzy algorithm
4.1. Motivation
Fig. 2 shows a block diagram of the fuzzy logic system.
There are two fuzzy inputs, i.e., queue length and traffic rate,
which are fuzzed into linguistic variables. Therefore, an input
value to a fuzzy system has a level of uncertainty within
a specific range. This feature makes fuzzy algorithms very
adaptive to dynamic conditions.
 I. Bouazzi et al. / ICT Express 3 (2017) 101–105 103

Fig. 3. Membership functions for the linguistic parameters.

Fig. 4. Membership functions for the linguistic parameters.

Table 1
Fuzzy rule base.
Fig. 1. The fuzzy logic scheme.
TQ Low Medium High
Empty Low Low Medium
Medium Low Medium High
Full Medium High High

To perform the fuzzification process, we should map two sets

Fig. 2. The fuzzy logic system.
This section provides the details of the proposed fuzzy algo-
rithm, which combines traffic rate measurement and dynamic
queue management to achieve energy efficiency and improve
QoS. We aimed to design a vigorous fuzzy algorithm that can
achieve better performance to minimize packet loss. This is en-
sured through the control of the queue length of each node with
a dynamic scheduling approach to maintain the communication
within the channel. However, we will be instantaneously mon-
itoring the queue occupancy and the traffic rate for every super
frame. All linguistic variables have a random number that will
be characterized by a membership function, to handle this func-
tion. A triangular form will be associated with the inputs, and
the output membership functions will be in the form of single-
ton functions, as shown in Fig. 3.
Concerning the output variable, the action for giving priority
can change according to three variation levels, namely: low
priority (1), middle priority (2), and high priority (3). Fig. 4
illustrates the variation of the output linguistic variables using
a singleton function.
in the fuzzy rule as follows:
Queue-Length = Q n ϵ{Empty, Medium, Full} (1)
Traffic-Rate = Tn ϵ{Low, Medium, High}. (2)
The total number of possible combinations arranged as a pair
of these states is 9. For each of these, we have to establish an
appropriate state for the output fuzzy variable, namely, priority.
This can be stated as:
Priority = Pn ϵ{Low, Medium, High}. (3)
A practical way of defining all essential rules is through
a decision table. It consists of nine rules and is built using a
max–min method, as shown in Table 1.
During the normalization phase, each measured value in
the system will be modified to provide a value belonging to
a simple speech. To normalize the linguistic variables, we
proceed in the following way. If the variation field of the entry
variable “y” is [a, b], it can be converted to [−1, 1] using the
following linear relation, as mentioned in Bhar et al. [12]:
2y − b − a
V = . (4)
b−a
During the first stage of the fuzzy rules, the fuzzy algorithm
calculates the linguistic variables considered in this work:
average queue length and traffic rate.
After normalizing these variables, it defines their associated
membership function (µk (Q n ), µk (Tn )). In this section, we
104 I. Bouazzi et al. / ICT Express 3 (2017) 101–105
Fig. 5. The new CSMA/CA-based fuzzy logic.
present our new algorithm, which is based on a fuzzy logic
scheduler. The algorithm is applied to all participant nodes in
the traffic. It can be depicted as a flow chart, as shown in Fig. 5.
4.2. Defuzzification
Here, we consider the widely used method of “centre
of gravity” [13]. The idea in this method is based on the
calculation of the average value in the case where subunits
have the same maximum height. The value of (Z moy ) is then
calculated using Eq. (5), where the Z k arguments indicate
the values of the linguistic variables for the output. The
Pk arguments represent the resulting values of the weights
calculated at the inference stage, as shown in Fig. 5.
Z 1 P1 + Z 2 P2
Z moy = . (5)
P1 + P2
The resulting weight values (Pk ) represent the input to the
defuzzification step. This value provides the final value of (Z ),
which defines the action for allocating priority. This factor lies
in the interval [−1, 1].
5. Simulation results
A performance evaluation was made using the NS-2 tool.
The simulation parameters used to assess the proposed model
under different schemes are given in Table 2.
Table 2
Simulation parameters.
Parameter Value
Simulation time 100 s
Channel frequency 2.4 GHz
Topology Cluster tree
Queue size 50
Packet size 512 kbps
Initial energy 1000 J
Number of nodes 30
Network area (m × m) 200 × 200
Fig. 6. Traffic load vs. energy consumption.
We introduced a novel scheduling mechanism based on
fuzzy-logic rules that operate on top of an energy-saving-
enabled MAC protocol for WSNs. This algorithm is integrated
with the traditional CSMA/CA algorithm and is applied to all
nodes whenever they want to access the channel. A priority
scheduling is allocated to the nodes according to their queue
length and traffic rate measurement. Fig. 6 shows the simulation
results of the energy consumption as a function of traffic load.
The simulation exhibited a good difference between the
basic CSMA/CA algorithm and the proposed algorithm. As we
can see in the figure, when the traffic increased, the energy
also increased. This rise, however, was significantly optimized
compared to that of the basic CSMA/CA, with the use of the
proposed fuzzy algorithm.
From the same figure, it can also be seen that the energy
consumed for a low traffic load was well optimized, whereas
it increased for higher traffic loads. This is because we had
more nodes that had more packets to send. These results
imply that power consumption had been reduced by using an
allocation priority for nodes that participated in the traffic more
than others. Our proposed method guarantees minimal power
consumption, which is approximately 20% lower energy than
that of the basic CSMA/CA algorithm.
Fig. 7 shows the simulation results of the throughput as a
function of time. It can be observed that the throughput was
maximized at a desired level using fuzzy logic rules. We can
see that the throughput efficiency for the fuzzy algorithm was
higher than that for the basic CSMA/CA algorithm. This was
due to the fact that the number of packets intended to be sent in
the fuzzy algorithm was less than that in the slotted CSMA/CA
 I. Bouazzi et al. / ICT Express 3 (2017) 101–105
Fig. 7. Throughput variation.
Fig. 8. Average delay variation.
algorithm because there were few conflicts in the fuzzy logic
rules and the packets were well circulated. It was found that
proposed algorithm showed good performances during the
simulation.
Fig. 8 shows the packet delay variation during the period of
simulation. It shows that the delay for the algorithm with fuzzy
rules was much lower compared to that with non-fuzzy rules.
From this figure, we can observe that the uses of high priorities
are guaranteed a minimum delay compared to those that do not
use our fuzzy approach.
6. Conclusions
In this work, we proposed a new efficient approach for
increasing the quality of service and for optimizing energy
consumption in wireless sensor networks. We proposed a
105
fuzzy logic algorithm for dealing with congestion and packet
loss. The proposed method is designed to decrease the loss
probability of packets by managing the resources efficiently
by considering the statistical features that are exclusive to
multimedia traffic, namely, the sudden and gradual traffic
changes. This strategy uses a novel idea that uses a fuzzy logic’s
membership functions and its rule base. The proposed approach
leads to a framework that provides an optimization of energy
consumption, a decrease in the number of dropped packets, and
an increase in the throughput. The concept of the fuzzy rule
is robust, and it works well in scheduling the communication
between nodes.
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