Abstract
In this paper, we propose a novel Etiquette protocol for enabling extremely energy-efficient communication among nodes in a multi-hop sensor network. Our key idea for energy efficiency is to allow dynamic, flexible scheduling of inter-node communication, thereby minimizing energy wasted due to idle-listening. Scheduling communication is commonly used in single-hop networks for significant energy savings (e.g. GSM). However, scheduling communication is a hard problem in a multi-hop network where packet load may not only vary in different parts of the network, but it may also fluctuate over time. The proposed Etiquette protocol allows nodes to schedule their communication in a completely distributed manner, while also allowing them the ability to change their communication schedule in response to the fluctuating packet load in the network. Etiquette protocol allows many-to-many communication, including ability to perform local broadcast. Our simulation results show that Etiquette protocol significantly reduces the average energy expended in delivering each bit as compared to S-MAC. We show that Etiquette protocol allows a network designer to trade increased latency for reduction in energy consumption. The proposed protocol is simple and intuitive.