Performance Evaluation of Differentiated Services Mechanisms over Wireless Sensor Networks

Data reliability and real-time delivery of critical information are very crucial in many wireless sensor network applications such as intruder detection and surveillance. In this paper, we explore different mechanisms to provide differentiated services for time-critical information flows. We compare their performances in terms of the packet delivery ratio and end-to-end latency for a high-priority information flow. Our simulation and delay analysis results show that an approach where the wireless medium is reserved along the path from the source to the sink for a high-priority information flow, can provide guaranteed and low latency delivery for a high-priority now, with acceptable delay impact to the low-priority flows.