Wireless Sensor Networks

Wei Ye and John Heidemann
USC/Information Sciences Institute

Abstract

This paper reviews medium access control (MAC), an enabling technology in wireless sensor networks. MAC protocols control how sensors access a shared radio channel to communicate with neighbors. Battery-powered wireless sensor networks with many nearby nodes challenge traditional MAC design. This paper discusses design trade-offs with an emphasis on energy efficiency. It classifies existing MAC protocols and compares their advantages and disadvantages in the context of sensor networks. Finally, it presents S-MAC as an example of a MAC protocol designed specifically for a sensor network, illustrating one combination of design trade-offs.

Availability

This paper is available only as a chapter in the book \emphWireless Sensor Networks, Ty Znati, Krishna Sivalingam, C. S. Raghavendra, editors. A similar but different version is available electronically. Copyright terms for this paper appear below.

Reference

Ye04a

Wei Ye and John Heidemann. Medium Access Control in Wireless Sensor Networks. In Wireless Sensor Networks, C. S. Raghavendra, Krishna Sivalingam, Ty Znati, editor, pp. 73-92. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2004. Chapter 4. <http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Ye04a.html>.

@inbook{Ye04a,
	author = "Wei Ye and John Heidemann",
	title = "Wireless Sensor Networks",
	chapter = "Medium Access Control in Wireless Sensor Networks",
	editor = "C. S. Raghavendra, Krishna Sivalingam, Ty Znati",
	publisher = "Kluwer Academic Publishers",
	year = "2004",
	pages = "73--92",
	note = "Chapter 4",
	keywords = "s-mac, MAC, in [Znati04a]",
	url = "http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Ye04a.html",
	myorganization = "USC/Information Sciences Institute",
	copyrightholder = "Kluwer Academic Publishers",
	availability = "
This paper is available only as a chapter in the book \emph{Wireless
Sensor Networks}, Ty Znati, Krishna Sivalingam, C. S. Raghavendra, editors.
A similar but different version
is available electronically.
",
}

Copyright

This paper is copyright © 2004 by Kluwer Academic Publishers. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that new copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Abstracting with credit is permitted.

To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission of the authors.