Optimizing Superframe and Data Buffer to Achieve Maximum Throughput for 802.15.4-Based Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy harvesting wireless sensor networks (EH-WSNs) intend to support sustainable operations. It is important to design a high-throughput data delivery scheme that adapts to the fluctuation in harvested energy in the EH-WSN nodes. In this article, the optimal superframe and data buffer scheme (OSDBS) is investigated to improve the throughput of IEEE 802.15.4 beacon-enabled EH-WSNs. A stochastic model is developed for OSDBS, which leads to the characterization of network throughput and packet delay. The OSDBS achieves the maximum throughput through setting the optimal superframe and buffer sizes of the nodes, which are the solution of the formulated optimization problem that maximizes the network throughput with consideration of energy-harvesting rate and data arrival rate. The simulation results show the OSDBS significantly outperforms the existing schemes in terms of throughput.