Improving Performance of Synchronous Transmission-Based Protocols Using Capture Effect over Multichannels

Abstract

Synchronous transmission has been exploited recently for accelerating fundamental operations of wireless sensor networks like data dissemination, data collection, and network-wide agreement by an order of magnitude. Although these protocols (e.g., Glossy) have shown to be highly reliable for small packet sizes, the use of large packet sizes coupled with an excessive number of simultaneous transmissions can reduce reliability significantly. Our work is motivated by the observation that capture effect can improve the reliability of synchronous transmission. We experimentally study the effect of physical layer capture and identify guidelines in which it can be exploited to enhance reliability. Based on these observations, we propose Syncast, a data dissemination protocol that improves over Glossy by exploiting capture effect over multichannels. The evaluation shows that Syncast provides a robust, reliable, and scalable data dissemination of large packets with lower end-to-end delay and up to 92% reduced radio-on-time.