Fast Desynchronization For Decentralized Multichannel Medium Access Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, accelerated desynchronization algorithm for decentralized multichannel medium access control, improving convergence speed, robustness, and throughput in wireless sensor networks.

Contribution

It formalizes desynchronization as an optimization problem, applying gradient and Nesterov's methods to enhance convergence and enable multichannel TDMA coordination.

Findings

Faster convergence to steady state.

Enhanced robustness to hidden nodes.

Higher network throughput.

Abstract

Distributed desynchronization algorithms are key to wireless sensor networks as they allow for medium access control in a decentralized manner. In this paper, we view desynchronization primitives as iterative methods that solve optimization problems. In particular, by formalizing a well established desynchronization algorithm as a gradient descent method, we establish novel upper bounds on the number of iterations required to reach convergence. Moreover, by using Nesterov's accelerated gradient method, we propose a novel desynchronization primitive that provides for faster convergence to the steady state. Importantly, we propose a novel algorithm that leads to decentralized time-synchronous multichannel TDMA coordination by formulating this task as an optimization problem. Our simulations and experiments on a densely-connected IEEE 802.15.4-based wireless sensor network demonstrate that our scheme provides for faster convergence to the steady state, robustness to hidden nodes, higher network throughput and comparable power dissipation with respect to the recently standardized IEEE 802.15.4e-2012 time-synchronized channel hopping (TSCH) scheme.