Trade-off energy and delay between MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks

A sensor network is composed of a large number of sensor nodes, which are densely deployed either inside the phenomenon or very close to it. One of the most important constraints on sensor nodes is the low power consumption requirement. Sensor nodes carry limited, generally irreplaceable, power sources. Therefore, while traditional networks aim to achieve high quality of service (QoS) provisions, sensor network protocols must focus primarily on power conservation. This paper presents the characteristics of energy consuming, average delay in 802.11 MAC, S-MAC that is specifically designed for wireless sensor networks. We analyze the energy consuming state in the 802.11 MAC in the simulation topology nodes, and measure average delay in 802.11 and S-MAC. Energy efficiency is the primary goal in this protocol design. 802.11 MAC is more efficient than S-MAC in the average delay, throughput. However S-MAC is an energy efficient protocol, a tradeoff between energy efficiency and delay, throughput.