Adaptive Slot Assignment Over Wireless Sensor Networks
T. Bernard H. Fouchal
CReSTIC lab. Syscom team
URCA
Reims 51687 Cedex2
Abstract
In wireless sensor networks, one of the most im-
portant challenge is power saving, then various contri-
butions are suggested since a decade. In this paper,
we propose a distributed and an adaptive gossiping
technique able to guarantee communications over all
sensors and to save a high amount of energy. The aim
is to allow to the network to achieve a self organiz-
ing procedure in order to provide an efficient structur-
ing approach for communications over sensors. The
medium access will be TDMA like. Indeed, each sen-
sor will have a particular slot for listening and another
one for sending. The slot assignment is achieved in a
distributed manner and is continuously reconfigurable
during the running. That means when a sensor leaves
the network, its assigned slot will be recovered. Our
main contribution, is to show how our approach will
ensure the reconfiguration of the network in order to
remove the ”dead” slot.
1 Introduction
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are promising
technologies composed of wireless tiny electronic de-
vices, namely sensors, equipped with one or more
transducers. These sensors are designed to monitor
physical environments and to collect data from them.
Actually, WSNs can be used in several areas [3]: bio-
logical environment, security, military, etc...
We focus in this paper on power saving and more
precisely on the energy consumed for communication
between sensors. Our aim is to structure the commu-
nications between sensors at the application level, to
minimize energy spent for communications.
Main sensor applications are designed to monitor
environmental parameters over a geographical area.
We consider that the WSN executes the same job at
each round (which could be fixed in advance or could
be variable). The procedure runs as follows: at the be-
ginning of each round, each sensor wakes up, scans its
associated parameters (temperature, humidity, light,
...) and sends them to the relay sensor node which
CReSTIC lab. Syscom team
URCA
Reims 51687 Cedex2
sends all the aggregated data to the base station. Af-
terward, each sensor moves to a sleeping mode for the
rest of the round. Here, we suggest to spread each
round on some slots. A slot is the amount of time
needed for any sensor to receive data from another one.
Then a sensor si will wake up at a specific slot. In the
meantime, the sensor si−1 should be awaked, si−1 will
send data to si . Then si−1 will move to a sleeping
mode in the next slot. At that slot, si+1 will wake up
to receive data from si . Then after, si will move to
a sleeping mode in the next slot. At the end of the
round, the relay node sensor will send all aggregated
information to the base station. We detail all needed
procedures to implement this technique and show also
how to handle fault-tolerance. Many illustrated exam-
ples are shown.
This paper is organized as follows, section 2
presents related works about communications over
WSN. In section 3, we give the preliminaries required
to explain our technique. Section 4 is dedicated to our
contribution, the proposed algorithms are detailed. In
section 5, we conclude our study and give some hints
about future works.
2 Related works
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are networks
composed of sensors and transducers and can be used
in many areas as medical context in order to monitor
patients [3] and many others.
In [4], authors present an energy-efficient, scal-
able and collision-free MAC layer protocol for sensor
networks. The approach promotes time-based arbi-
tration of medium access to limit signal interference
among the transmission of sensors. Transmission and
reception time slots are prescheduled to allow sensors
to turn their radio circuitry off when not engaged. In
addition, energy consumption due to active to sleep
mode transitions is minimized through the assignment
of contiguous transmission/reception slots to each sen-
sor.
[6] proposes a TDMA based scheduling scheme
that balances energy-saving and end-to-end delay.
This balance is achieved by an appropriate schedul-
ing of the wakeup intervals, to allow data packets to
be delayed by only one sleep interval for the end-to-
end transmission from the sensors to the gateway. The
proposed scheme achieves the reduction of the end-to-
end delay caused by the sleep mode operation while at
the same time it maximizes the energy savings.
Another issue denoted Dynamic Power Manage-
ment (DPM) technology has been widely used in sen-
sor networks. Though many specific technical chal-
lenges remain and deserve much further study, the pri-
mary factor currently limiting progress in sensor net-
works is not these challenges but is instead the lack of
an overall sensor network architecture.
In [5], authors suggests a new architecture of sen-
sor networks with new threshold which satisfies the
sleep-state transition policy. Under this new architec-
ture, nodes in deeper sleep states consume lower en-
ergy while asleep, but require longer delays and higher
latency costs to awaken. Implementing DPM with con-
sidering the battery status and probability of event
generation will reduce the energy consumption and
prolong the whole lifetime of the sensor networks.
In [2], we proved that the power management
could be achieved at the application level. We have
used MicaZ sensors to show that we can use distributed
management techniques over all sensors. On fact we
manage the sleeping mode from the application level.
3 Preliminaries
We will handle on a wireless sensor network
W SN composed of n nodes identified as s1 , ..., sn . In
our case, each sensor will repeat the same task period-
ically (with a period Ti ).
Each sensor si needs the amount of time tsi to achieve
its task (tsi ≤ Ti ). Each sensor has its own clock ci . In
order to be realistic, we consider that clocks of sensors
are not synchronized, that means: ci (0) 6= cj (0), ∀i 6=
j. We assume that each period Ti (∀i 6= n) has the
value T . That means that all sensors calibrate their
job on the period T .
3.1 Assumptions
We consider the following assumptions:
• Each sensor has an unique identifier,
• ∀(i, j) ∈ V 2 , d(i, j) < R all sensors are in the same
radio range,the network is 1-hop.
• Sending a message is instantaneous,
• Each sensor is running a task at the same speed.
Figure 1: Energy consumption of Mica 2 nodes
through different states
3.2 Network model
The system contains a set of n independent sen-
sors, communicating over a wireless network. A wire-
less sensor network can be represented by a graph
G = (V, E), where V is a set of sensors and E a set
of edges which express the available communications:
(i, j) belongs to E means that i can send messages to
j.
In a given graph G = (V, E), we denote by n =
|V | the number of sensors in the network. Each node
executes the same algorithm. The neighbor set Ni of
a sensor i is defined as Ni = {j ∈ V |(i, j) ∈ E}. The
number of neighbors of a sensor i is calledP the degree,
deg(i)
i∈V
denoted by deg(i). The average degree is n .
4 Contributions
We propose in this paper an adaptive structuring
approach for communications between sensors in order
to decrease the battery consumption.
Authors of [1] detail the energy consumption of
different parts of a sensor node. They have shown
that the main energy is consumed by communications
between sensors.
Thus the avoidance of unnecessary communica-
tions will preserve battery and prolong sensor life-
time. This will also avoid collisions that are also
costly;We propose to reduce the time elapsed in the
states Transceiver and run (Figure 1).
4.1 Informal description of gossiping tech-
nique
Decreasing battery consumption will be achieved
by structuring the communication among all sensors.
We will build an abstract ring structure over the sensor
network. The advantage to use a ring communication

Figure 2: Gossiping between sensors on a ring struc-
ture
architecture is that there is only one sensor that sends
data, and only one other sensor that is receiving them
(i.e. all other sensors are in the sleeping mode). Such
a structure permits to avoid collisions when several
sensors are sending data together. The organization
of the discussion between sensors on the ring are de-
scribed in Figure. 2.
This ring structure should be adapted at each
time when a sensor is disconnected from the network
(not enough battery, transceiver failure, distance from
other sensors,. . . ). The adaptation of the ring archi-
tecture will be done by renumbering sensors and up-
dating slot assignment of all sensors.
This implies to propose a 3-steps solution:
• Synchronization step: in this step, nodes will
agree to establish a discussion in an ordered way.
This implies to elect a leader, to number sensors,
to synchronize sensors and to assign for each sen-
sor a specific slot during which it can send a mes-
sage.
• Communication step: once the synchronization
step is achieved, the communication step takes
place, and the nodes keep awake during their slot,
receive data, aggregate sensing data and send up-
dated data.
• Stabilization step: when a sensor crashes, the ring
structure will be adapted in a distributed manner.
In this step, we have to care about several cases :
multiple crashes, leader crash, . . .
The three steps will be organized as described in
Figure 3. The first one deals with the network setup.
The communication step takes care of communications
over the WSN. Each time a sensor crashes, a stabiliza-
tion step is required to update the ring communication
structure.
4.2 Synchronization step
To achieve the ring setup, our algorithm will elect
a leader among all the sensors. This leader will build
Synchro Communication Stab. Communication
Failure
Figure 3: Steps scheduling
the ring communication structure by assigning for each
sensor an unique identifier according to a DFS (Depth
First Search) traversal strategy.In this step, all sensors
are awake. Many collisions may occur.
The algorithm will then adjust the clock of each
sensor based on the delay of the round trip communi-
cation period between the leader and the sensor, and
assigns a specific slot for each sensor.
The aim of this step is to synchronize all sen-
sors. That means that all sensors will be calibrated on
the same clock. First of all, the main idea is to elect
a leader which will supervise the setup. The leader
will assign a unique identifier for each sensor. The
leader will send for each sensor a specific packet de-
noted GIVE-YOUR-TIME (asking for the sensor clock
time) and the acknowledge packet will be MY-TIME
(responding with the value of its clock). After visiting
all nodes, the leader knows the delay of each sensor.
It will ask each sensor to delay its clock. During this
step, all sensors are awake and are either in a ”sending
mode” or a ”listening mode”. In the following, we will
detail our algorithms for each task.
4.2.1 Leader election
It this step, all sensors are awake. The algorithm exe-
cuted by each sensor is described as follows :
Algorithm 1 Election procedure for node i
1: LeaderId ←− i
2: while NotElapsed(Period) do
3: Broadcast(LeaderId)
4: if Collision detected then
5: wait(random)
6: goto 3
7: end if
8: receive(L)
9: if (L > LeaderId) then
10: LeaderId ←− L
11: end if
12: end while
Each sensor will run this program. At the end
of the procedure, each sensor should have the same
leader Id which should be maximum identifier value
of all sensors. The idea is quite simple : when a node
receives an identifier, it will compare it to its identifier.
if it is greater, it consider this received identifier as
the possible leader node otherwise it will consider that
it will consider that it may be the leader who my be Algorithm 2 Numbering with a DFS Traversal on
elected. After some broadcasts, the whole network will sensors
agree on Leader identifier. 1: At begining : F ather = ndef, ∀i ∈ V, used[i] = f alse
The period elapsed should be long enough to per- 2: /* Leader only*/
mit to each node to broadcast its identifier. This pe- 3: F ather ←− i
riod of time depends on the number of sensors. A ran- 4: Choosej0 ∈ N eigh
dom waiting period is used to avoid multiple collisions 5: used[j0 ] ←− T rue
situations. 6: Send Token (0) to j0
7: /* All sensors*/
8: Reception of token (k) de j0
4.2.2 Sensor numbering 9: if F ather = ndef then
Sensor numbering aims to provide an order for data 10: id ←− k
11: F ather ←− j0
collecting over the network. Slot assignment (Section
12: end if
4.2.4) will use the numbering done in this section.
13: if ∀j ∈ N eigh, used[j] = true then
The main idea of this algorithm is to use a DFS 14: id ←− k
traversal over the entire network, and at each new vis- 15: End of Numbering procedure
ited node, the algorithm (see Algorithm 2 assigns an 16: else
identifier (line 10 and 14). The traversal is achieved 17: if ∃j ∈ N eigh, j 6= F ather ∧ ¬used[j] then
thanks to a gate marking strategy (At each movement 18: if F ather 6= j0 ∧ ¬used[j0 ] then
of the token in the network the used gate is marked, 19: j ←− j0
that avoids to use it again). 20: else
When the algorithm ends, we will be able to ob- 21: Choose j ∈ N eigh\{F ather} ∧ ¬used[j]
serve that each sensor has its own identifier (an unique 22: k ←− k + 1
23: end if
number). This identifier will be very useful for the
24: used[j] ←− T rue
whole technique. Each sensor keep sits identifier un-
25: send Token (k) to j
less a trouble appears on the WSN. 26: else
27: used[f ather] ←− T rue
4.2.3 Clock calibration 28: Send Token (k) to j
29: end if
It this step, all sensors are awake. The leader will be 30: end if
the initiator of the polling procedure and other nodes
will only answer for leader requests (cf. Algorithm 3
and 4). Algorithm 3 Procedure for the Leader
1: for i = 1 to (LeaderId − 1) do
2: Let C be local Clock
4.2.4 Slot assignment 3: Send to i ”GIVE-YOUR-TIME”
This last step before effective communications will as- 4: Receive from i ”MY-TIME ” at clock X
sign to each sensor a slot for listening and a next one 5: Send to i ”RESET-CLOCK”(X+(X-C)/2)
6: end for
for sending. The setup of this slot is done by the leader
(cf Alg. 5 and 6).
Algorithm 4 Procedure for each node except the
4.3 Communication step and data aggre- Leader
gation 1: Receive from Leader ”GIVE-YOUR-TIME”
2: Send to Leader ”My-TIME”
3: Receive from Leader ”RESET-CLOCK”(X)
The aim of this step is to gather data among all
4: Reset Clock(X)
sensors of the network. To achieve this task, at the
beginning of a round the leader will start a traversal
of the ring with a token, and each sensor will aggre- Algorithm 5 Procedure for the Leader
gate its scanned data into the token message. As an 1: M yReceivingSlot ←− id ∗ T askT ime
example, in Figure 5, we show that the token message 2: M ySendingSlot ←− 0
is sent from the leader with only one data inside. Af-
ter a round over the WSN, the leader receives a token Algorithm 6 Procedure for each node id except the
having data aggregated from all other sensors. Leader
The algorithmic procedure is as follows, for each 1: M yReceivingSlot ←− id ∗ T askT ime
node except the relay node: 2: M ySendingSlot ←− (id + 1) ∗ T askT ime
and for the leader, the procedure is:
 Base Base Base Base
station station station station
Base Base
station station

sensor 4
(leader)

sensor 4 sensor 3
(leader) R S R S R S
sensor 2
sensor 3
R S R S
sensor 1
sensor 2
R S R S

sensor 1
T T T-1s
R S R S
Sensor 2 Failure

Round Period Round Period ...

Figure 6: Slot adjustment on a failure
Figure 4: Slot assignment over sensors
Topology Management Scanned Data

1
5 0 1 2 3 4 T° H T° P P T°

T H L P T L T Circulating Word

T° pos 1
6 7

Figure 7: Circulating word in the token message

Base Station

Humidity
Light pos 2 2

With such a strategy, each sensor is awake during

T H
two successive slots.
T H L P T

4.4 Stabilization step

Light pos 1
5
T° pos 2 3 Our solution has to take care about disconnec-
T H L tion of any sensor in the network. In order to guar-
T H L P antee the communications between sensors, when a
4 Pressure
sensor crashes, the ring structure has to be updated
through the sensor’s slot assignment. The disconnec-
tion will be detected with a basic acknowledgement
Figure 5: Data aggregation over the ring
protocol: a sensor receiving the token message, will
acknowledge its reception to the sender node. When
an acknowledgement is missing, the sending node will
Algorithm 7 Procedure for a non-leader node
keep awake until it finds another node able to receive
1: Wake up
its token(obviously, the next node of the crashed one).
2: Receives Token Message T
Then the slots assigned to other nodes have to be shift.
3: envir parameter ←− scann envirronment()
4: T [id] ←− envir parameter The parameters of the shift procedure depends on the
5: Broadcast Token Message T number of nodes crashed and their location in the ring
6: Sleep We propose to manage the slot assignment by us-
ing the concept of circulating word. A circulating word
is encapsulated in a token message with scanned data
Algorithm 8 Procedure for the leader node (Figure 7), it collects and broadcasts pieces of infor-
1: Wake up mation along its moves through the network. The cir-
2: Receives Token Message T culating word will contain the location of each sensor
3: Relay Token Message T to the base station
in the ring.
4: envir parameter ←− scann envirronment()
5: T [id] ←− envir parameter
If no acknowledgement from a sensor sj is re-
6: Broadcast Token Message T ceived, a sensor si will increase the length of its slot
7: Sleep in order to communicate with the successor of sj . si
updates also the circulating word by deleting sj from
the circulating word. If the successor of js has also
crashed, si will increase again its slot until it is able to
communicate with another sensor. In this case, it re-
move all nodes (who has crashes) from the circulating
word.
The reassignment of the communication slots are
done with the circulating word. We also have to deal
with a specific kind of crash: the leader sensor. If the
leader crashes, no information will be transmitted to
the base station. To solve this problem, the leader will
be re-computed during the execution. This gives the
following algorithm:
Algorithm 9
1: Wake Up
2: Reception of the token message T :<
CW [], SD[] >
3: id ←− index of (id)
4: Send Acknowledgment < Ack, id >
5: if id = maxi∈{1,...,size(CW )}CW [i] then
6: Send Token Message to Base Station
7: end if
8: T.SD[id] ←− scann environment()
9: Broadcast Token Message T
10: Reception Acknowledgment< Ack, i >
11: if i 6= T.CW [id + 1] then
12: Delete T.CW [id + 1], . . . T.CW [i − 1]
13: Delete T.SD[id + 1], . . . T.SD[i − 1]
14: end if
15: Sleep for size(CW ) slots
A token T message is composed of the following
data:
• CW []: is the circulating word that manages the
topology of the network. It is a vector with sensor
ids. The size of the circulating word determines
the length of the round for collecting all the data
scanned on the network.
• SD[]: is the data scanned by each sensor.
Identifiers of sensors are permanently updated
(see line 3), and the leader is also recomputed at each
token hop (Alg.9 line 5). At line 9, the sensor id broad-
casts the token message and waits for an acknowledge-
ment (it broadcasts the message until the acknowledg-
ment is received). Its successor in the ring should be
the one which should acknowledge. In the other case,
the algorithm updates the token (update of the circu-
lating word and the deletion of the associated scanned
data).
5 Conclusion and future work
In this study we have shown that efficient dis-
tributed techniques widely used in distributed comput-
ing can provide very promising results for MAC access
over WSN. We have presented a distributed slot as-
signment for each sensor of the network. During the
communication period, we assume that only two sen-
sors could communicate which avoids collisions. This
approach is fault-tolerant since if any change appears
in the network, in particular when a sensor leaves the
network, we apply a specific procedure to recover the
correct functioning. The approach is energy-balanced,
that means that each sensor will spend the same time
than others since they execute the same job during the
same period.
This technique can only be used for particular
situations: all sensors are in the same radio range and
each sensor has to execute the same job periodically.
This restrictions allow to solve many usual problems
as patient monitoring, robot monitoring, ... In order
to tackle other issues, routing algorithms should be
integrated in our approach. This extension, will allow
to cover networks of many sensors over wide areas.
We have undertaken recently a scalability study
of this approach using simulation in order to check
the feasibility on large WSN. For the next future, we
intend to implement this approach in a software-free
sensors io
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