Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Medium Access Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

  • Chapter
Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

This chapter 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 chapter 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.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

REFERENCES

  1. T. S. Rappaport. Wireless Communications, Principles and Practice. Prentice Hall, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Nonnan Abramson. Development of the ALOHANET. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory,31(2):119–123, March 1985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Leonard Kleinrock and Fouad Tobagi. Packet switching in radio channels: Part I-carrier sense multiple access modes and their throughput delay characteristics. IEEE Transactions on Communications,23(12):1400–1416, December 1975.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. LAN MAN Standards Committee of the IEEE Computer Society. Wireless LAN medium access control (MAC) andphysical layer (PHY) speciJication. IEEE, New York, NY, USA, IEEE Std 802.11-1999 edition, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Mark Stemm and Randy HKatz. Measuring and reducing energy consumption of network interfaces in hand-held devices. IEICE Transactions on Communications, E80-B(8): 1125–1131, August 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Oliver Kasten. Energy consumption. http://www.inf.ethz.ch/∼kasten/research/bathtub/energy_consumption.html. Eldgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Crossbow Technology Inc, http://www.xbow.com/

    Google Scholar 

  8. Brian Marsh and Bruce Zenel. Power measurements of typical notebook computers. Technical Report MITL-TR-110-94, Matsushita Information Technology Laboratory, May 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Jason Hill, Robert Szewczyk, Alec Woo, Seth Hollar, David Culler, and Kristofer Pister. System architecture directions for networked sensors. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, pages 93–104, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2000. ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Chipcon Inc., http://www.chipcon.corn/. Chipcon CC1OOO Data Sheet.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Atmel Corporation, http://www.atmel.corn/. AVR Microcontroller ATmegal28L Reference Manual.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Katayoun Sohrabi and Gregory J. Pottie. Performance of a novel self-organization protocol for wireless ad hoc sensor networks. In Proceedings of the IEEE 50th Vehicular Technology Conference, pages 1222–1226, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Wendi Rabiner Heinzelman, Anantha Chandrakasan, and Hari Balakrishnan. Energyefficient communication protocols for wireless microsensor networks. In Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, January 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Bluetooth SIG Inc. Specification of the Bluetooth system: Core. http://www.bluetooth.org/, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Jaap C. Haartsen. The Bluetooth radio system. IEEE Personal Communications Magazine, pages 28–36, February 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Alec Woo and David Culler. A transmission control scheme for media access in sensor networks. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, pages 221–235, Rome, Italy, July 2001. ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Fouad Tobagi and Leonard Kleinrock. Packet switching in radio channels: Part II-the hidden terminal problem in carrier sense multiple access and the busy-tone solution. IEEE Transactions on Communications, 23(12): 1417–1433, December 1975.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Phil Karn. MACA: A new channel access method for packet radio. In Proceedings of the 9th ARRL Computer Networking Conference, pages 134–140, London, Ontario, Canada, September 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  19. V. Bharghavan, A. Demers, S. Shenker, and L. Zhang. MACAW: A media access protocol for wireless lans. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Conference, pages 212–225, London, UK, September 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Frazer Bennett, David Clarke, Joseph B. Evans, Andy Hopper, Alan Jones, and David Leask. Piconet: Embedded mobile networking. IEEE Personal Communications Magazine, 4(5):8–15, October 1997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Yu-Chee Tseng, Chih-Shun Hsu, and Ten-Yueng Hsieh. Power-saving protocols for IEEE 802.11-based multi-hop ad hoc networks. In Proceedings of the IEEE Infocom, pages 200–209, New York, NY, June 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  22. S. Singh and C.S. Raghavendra. PAMAS: Power aware multi-access protocol with signalling for ad hoc networks. ACM Computer Communication Review, 28(3):5–26, July 1998.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Wei Ye, John Heidemann, and Deborah Estrin. An energy-efficient mac protocol for wireless sensor networks. In Proceedings of the IEEE Infocom, pages 1567–1576, New York, NY, June 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Wei Ye, John Heidemann, and Deborah Estrin. Medium access control with coordinated, adaptive sleeping for wireless sensor networks. Technical Report ISI-TR-567, USC Information Sciences Institute, January 2003. To appear in the IEEEIACM Transactions on Networking, April, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Gregory J. Pottie and William J. Kaiser. Embedding the internet: wireless integrated network sensors. Communications of the ACM, 43(5):51–58, May 2000.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Chalermek Intanagonwiwat, Ramesh Govindan, and Deborah Estrin. Directed diffusion: A scalable and robust communication paradigm for sensor networks. In Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, pages 5667, Boston, MA, USA, August 2000. ACM.

    Google Scholar 

  27. John Heidemann, Fabio Silva, Chalermek Intanagonwiwat, Ramesh Govindan, Deborah Estrin, and Deepak Ganesan. Building efficient wireless sensor networks with low-level naming. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, pages 146–159, Lake Louise, Banff, Canada, October 2001.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, California

    Wei Ye

  2. Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, California

    John Heidemann

Authors
  1. Wei Ye
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. John Heidemann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, California

    C. S. Raghavendra (Professor) (Professor)

  2. University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Krishna M. Sivalingam (Associate Professor) (Associate Professor)

  3. National Science Foundation/University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh

    Taieb Znati (Program Director/Professor) (Program Director/Professor)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ye, W., Heidemann, J. (2004). Medium Access Control in Wireless Sensor Networks. In: Raghavendra, C.S., Sivalingam, K.M., Znati, T. (eds) Wireless Sensor Networks. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-7884-2_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-7884-2_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-35269-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-7884-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation