Medium access control issues in sensor networks

ABSTRACT

Medium access control for wireless sensor networks has been a very active research area for the past couple of years. The sensor networks literature presents an alphabet soup of medium access control protocols with almost all of the works focusing only on energy efficiency. There is much more innovative work to be done at the MAC layer, but current efforts are not addressing the hard unsolved problems. Majority of the works appearing in the literature are "least publishable incremental improvements" over the popular S-MAC [1] protocol. In this paper we present research directions for future medium access research. We identify some open issues and discuss possible solutions.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Wireless communication

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.6 Internetworking
          Subjects: Standards (e.g., TCP/IP)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING
      I.6.5 Model Development
          Subjects: Modeling methodologies

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Standardization

Keywords:
medium access control, wireless sensor networks