Energy-Efficient MAC for Cellular IoT: State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Standardization

TL;DR

This paper surveys the current state of energy-efficient MAC protocols for cellular IoT, discussing challenges, solutions, and future research directions to enhance battery life in IoT devices.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of energy-efficient MAC protocols, analyzes energy dissipation sources, and offers insights and open problems for future research in cellular IoT.

Findings

Identifies key sources of energy dissipation at the MAC layer.

Reviews existing MAC protocol designs for energy efficiency.

Suggests future research directions and open challenges.

Abstract

In the modern world, the connectivity-as-we-go model is gaining popularity. Internet-of-Things (IoT) envisions a future in which human beings communicate with each other and with devices that have identities and virtual personalities, as well as sensing, processing, and networking capabilities, which will allow the developing of smart environments that operate with little or no human intervention. In such IoT environments, that will have battery-operated sensors and devices, energy efficiency becomes a fundamental concern. Thus, energy-efficient (EE) connectivity is gaining significant attention from the industrial and academic communities. This work aims to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey on the energy efficiency of medium access control (MAC) protocols for cellular IoT. we provide a detailed discussion on the sources of energy dissipation at the MAC layer and then propose solutions. In addition to reviewing the proposed MAC designs, we also provide insights and suggestions that can guide practitioners and researchers in designing EE MAC protocols that extend the battery life of IoT devices. Finally, we identify a range of challenging open problems that should be solved for providing EE MAC services for IoT devices, along with corresponding opportunities and future research ideas to address these challenges.