On-Demand Satellite Payload Execution Strategy for Natural Disasters Monitoring Using LoRa: Observation Requirements and Optimum Medium Access Layer Mechanisms

Natural disasters and catastrophes are responsible for numerous casualties and important economic losses. They can be monitored either with in-situ or spaceborne instruments. However, these monitoring systems are not optimal for an early detection and constant monitoring. An optimisation of these systems could benefit from networks of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on the Earth’s surface, capable of automatically triggering on-demand executions of the spaceborne instruments. However, having a vast amount of sensors communicating at once with one satellite in view also poses a challenge in terms of the medium access layer (MAC), since, due to packet collisions, packet losses can occur. As part of this study, the monitoring requirements for an ideal spatial nodes density and measurement update frequencies of those sensors are provided. In addition, a study is performed to compare different MAC protocols, and to assess the sensors density that can be achieved with each of these protocols, using the LoRa technology, and concluding the feasibility of the monitoring requirements identified.

A Review of Multi-Channel Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are witnessing a momentum spread especially with the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. Indeed, WSNs are considered as the main enabling infrastructure for IoT networks. Nowadays, the emerging WSNs applications require not only long network lifespan but also considerably high data rate. Consequently, conceiving Multichannel MAC protocols that save the scarceenergy budget of sensor nodes while providing high network throughput is crucial for the emerging WSNs applications. In this paper, a thorough review of recent multichannel MAC protocols is provided along with a classification framework to deeply understand the design aspects for each protocol.

A Comprehensive Survey of Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) have emerged as a promising technology for health monitoring due to their high utility and important role in improving human health. WBANs consist of a number of small battery-operated biomedical sensor nodes placed on the body or implanted, which are used to monitor and transmit important parameters such as blood pressure, electrocardiogram (ECG), and electroencephalogram (EEG). WBANs have strict requirements on energy efficiency and reliability during data collection and transmission. The most appropriate layer to address these requirements is the MAC layer. Medium access control protocols play an essential role in controlling the operation of radio transceivers and significantly affect the power consumption of the whole network. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of the most relevant and recent MAC protocols developed for WBANs. We discuss design requirements of a good MAC protocol for WBANs. We further review the different channel access mechanisms for WBANs. Then, we investigate the existing designed MAC protocols for WBANs with a focus on their features along with their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we summarize the results of this work and draw conclusions.