ABSTRACT
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), whether they are employed in the home, office, industrial plants, healthcare, or the habitat, form one of the building blocks for constructing a truly pervasive environment. Medium access control (MAC) protocols play a crucial role in the dissemination and transfer of the collected data in an efficient manner. This chapter describes major research issues and challenges as well-as proposed solutions for the MAC layer in sensor networks. Beside energy-efficiency, MAC layer protocols need to meet several other important design goals for their applicability in the pervasive computing paradigm. There are a number of transceiver activities that may lead to excessive or unneeded energy consumption. These include collisions of transmissions in multiple sender environments, control packet overhead, adaptation to network changes when nodes join, leave, or move. The architecture of the WSNs used in pervasive computing applications must handle the physical mobility of sensor nodes for better coverage.
