The use of directional antennas for wireless communications brings several benefits, such as increased communication range and reduced interference. One example of directional antennas are electronically switched directional (ESD) antennas that can easily be integrated into Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) due to their small size and low cost. However, current literature questions the benefits of using ESD antennas in WSNs due to the increased likelihood of hidden terminals and increased power consumption. This is mainly because earlier studies have used directionality for transmissions but not for reception. In this article, we introduce novel cross-layer optimizations to fully utilize the benefits of using directional antennas. We modify the Medium Access Control (MAC) , routing, and neighbor discovery mechanisms to support directional communication. We focus on convergecast investigating a large number of different network topologies. Our experimental results, both in simulation and with real nodes, show when the traffic is dense, networks with directional antennas can significantly outperform networks with omnidirectional ones in terms of packet delivery rate, energy consumption, and energy per received packet.

中文翻译：

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使用定向天线提高传感器网络性能：跨层优化

使用定向天线进行无线通信带来了一些好处，例如增加了通信范围和减少了干扰。定向天线的一个示例是电子开关定向 (ESD) 天线，由于其小尺寸和低成本，可以很容易地集成到无线传感器网络 (WSN) 中。然而，由于隐藏终端的可能性增加和功耗增加，目前的文献质疑在 WSN 中使用 ESD 天线的好处。这主要是因为早期的研究使用方向性进行传输而不是接收。在本文中，我们介绍了新颖的跨层优化，以充分利用使用定向天线的好处。我们修改媒体访问控制 (MAC)、路由和邻居发现机制来支持定向通信。我们专注于研究大量不同网络拓扑的会聚广播。我们在模拟和真实节点中的实验结果表明，当流量密集时，具有定向天线的网络在数据包传输率、能耗和每个接收数据包的能量方面明显优于具有全向天线的网络。