ABSTRACT
The primary objective in wireless sensor networks (WSN) is to prolong the network lifetime as much as possible. The sensor nodes are typically battery–operated and WSNs are usually deployed in hostile or hard–to–reach environments. The objective of medium access control (MAC) protocols for WSNs is to efficiently regulate the medium access, in terms of both performance and energy efficiency, so a relevant metric is the channel access success probability provided to the upper layers. The energy consumption is directly related with the duty cycle of nodes or with the average sleep time, the parameters are also suitable metrics for an energy–efficient MAC protocol. The Data–Gathering MAC is an energy–efficient low–latency protocol designed and optimized to solve the data forwarding interruption problem in convergecast WSNs. The physical computing systems are typically very large and dense and require real–time operation, dependability, security, safety, efficiency, and adaptivity.
