The PSL MAC Protocol for Accumulated Data Processing in the Energy-Harvesting Wireless Sensor Network

In the energy-harvesting wireless sensor network (EH-WSN), the actual energy-harvesting rate of each node varies due to the difference in node deployment or a sudden change in the environment. Therefore, when a node with a low energy-harvesting rate is used as a relay node, its energy is depleted at an accelerated rate. This reduces connectivity and network life, thus causing data accumulation on the node and the neighboring nodes. This study proposes a medium access control (MAC) protocol to avoid data accumulation in nodes; the proposed algorithm comprises the following: (1) a data transmission mechanism based on probability control for high channel utilization and (2) an accumulation data processing mechanism (power control, same layer transmission, and “layer-down” processing, PSL) to circumvent data accumulation. The simulation results show that PSL improves the network throughput and reduces the packet loss rate, while effectively solving the data accumulation problem.