Duty Cycle-Aware Energy-Efficient MAC Protocol for Single-Layer Hierarchal UAV-WSN

Abstract:

Optimizing energy consumption is critical for extending network lifetime and ensuring re-liable data collection in UAV-assisted wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In the proposed work, an enhanced MAC protocol is developed, i.e., Duty-Cycle-Aware Bit-Mapped (DCABM). The proposed method estimates the active nodes per communication cycle based on their duty cycles and assigns transmission slots using a bit-mapping approach. The protocol is evaluated using the IEEE 802.15.4 standard with CC2420 radio parameters, considering varying network sizes, event occurrence prob-abilities, and packet sizes. The comparative analysis of the proposed method is compared with con-ventional UAV _EBMA and UAV _ETDMA methods. The results demonstrate that DCABM sig-nificantly reduces energy consumption. Specifically, DCABM achieves up to 42% energy savings compared to UAV _ETDMA and approximately 31% reduction compared to UAV _EBMA un-der high event occurrence conditions. Additionally, across increasing node densities and packet sizes, DCABM consistently maintains superior energy efficiency, making it suitable for scalable and event-driven WSN applications with UAV support.

• Periodical: Advances in Science and Technology (Volume 177)
• Pages: 81-89
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-R4C9Jo
• Online since: May 2026
• Authors: Rajeev Kumar*, Yatindra Nath Singh, Dushantha Nalin K. Jayakody, Stefan Panic
• Keywords: Bit-Mapping, Duty Cycle Estimation, Event-Driven Communication, Slot Scheduling, UAV-Assisted Wireless Sensor Networks, Wireless Communication Protocols

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