Energy efficient multi-beacon guard method for periodic data gathering in time-synchronized WSN

In periodic data-gathering, sensors can switch on the transceiver only during packet transmission to save energy. Exact clock-synchronization is challenging to achieve because of error present in synchronization protocols. Clock-disagreement increases with time in the absence of synchronization. This paper proposes an Energy-efficient Multi Beacon Guard method (EMBG) to decrease the energy consumption by minimizing the awake time of sender and receiver by periodically switching on and off the receivers during the guard-time. We determine the optimal number-of-times the receiver needs to wake up along with the wake-up intervals to collectively minimize the total energy consumption of the sender–receiver pair during transmission. This paper shows the effectiveness of EMBG in energy conservation and compares with existing approaches using ns2 simulation.