MAC for Machine Type Communications in Industrial IoT -- Part I: Protocol Design and Analysis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel MAC protocol for industrial IoT machine-type communications, focusing on high device density, QoS support, and efficient channel utilization through sensing-based distributed coordination.

Contribution

It presents a new slot structure, access procedure, and mechanisms tailored for dense industrial IoT environments, with analytical delay performance analysis.

Findings

Improved channel utilization through sensing-based coordination

Support for differentiated QoS in high-density device scenarios

Analytical delay performance insights

Abstract

In this two-part paper, we propose a novel medium access control (MAC) protocol for machine-type communications in the industrial internet of things. The considered use case features a limited geographical area and a massive number of devices with sporadic data traffic and different priority types. We target at supporting the devices while satisfying their quality of service (QoS) requirements with a single access point and a single channel, which necessitates a customized design that can significantly improve the MAC performance. In Part I of this paper, we present the MAC protocol that comprises a new slot structure, corresponding channel access procedure, and mechanisms for supporting high device density and providing differentiated QoS. A key idea behind this protocol is sensing-based distributed coordination for significantly improving channel utilization. To characterize the proposed protocol, we analyze its delay performance based on the packet arrival rates of devices. The analytical results provide insights and lay the groundwork for the fine-grained scheduling with QoS guarantee as presented in Part II.