MAC Essentials for Wireless Sensor Networks

The wireless medium being inherently broadcast in nature and hence prone to interferences requires highly optimized medium access control (MAC) protocols. This holds particularly true for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consisting of a large amount of miniaturized battery-powered wireless networked...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE Communications surveys and tutorials 2010-01, Vol.12 (2), p.222-248
Main Authors: Bachir, Abdelmalik, Dohler, Mischa, Watteyne, Thomas, Leung, Kin K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access protocols
Broadcasting
Classification
Constraint optimization
Energy consumption
Energy Saving Protocols
Guidelines
Human
Humans
Interference
Media Access Protocol
Medium Access Control
Networks
Optimization
Sensors
State of the art
Studies
Surveys
Wireless application protocol
Wireless sensor networks
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Summary:The wireless medium being inherently broadcast in nature and hence prone to interferences requires highly optimized medium access control (MAC) protocols. This holds particularly true for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consisting of a large amount of miniaturized battery-powered wireless networked sensors required to operate for years with no human intervention. There has hence been a growing interest on understanding and optimizing WSN MAC protocols in recent years, where the limited and constrained resources have driven research towards primarily reducing energy consumption of MAC functionalities. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art study in which we thoroughly expose the prime focus of WSN MAC protocols, design guidelines that inspired these protocols, as well as drawbacks and shortcomings of the existing solutions and how existing and emerging technology will influence future solutions. In contrast to previous surveys that focused on classifying MAC protocols according to the technique being used, we provide a thematic taxonomy in which protocols are classified according to the problems dealt with. We also show that a key element in selecting a suitable solution for a particular situation is mainly driven by the statistical properties of the generated traffic.
ISSN:1553-877X
1553-877X
2373-745X
DOI:10.1109/SURV.2010.020510.00058