%0 Journal Article %T A Comparative Study of Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks %A Meghan GUNN %A Simon G. M. KOO %J Int'l J. of Communications, Network and System Sciences %P 695-703 %@ 1913-3723 %D 2009 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/ijcns.2009.28080 %X One of the major constraints in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is power consumption. In recent years, a lot of efforts have been put into the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols for WSN, in order to reduce energy consumption and enhance the network¡¯s lifetime. In this paper, we surveyed some MAC protocols for WSN and compared their design tradeoffs. The goal is to provide a foundation for future MAC design, and to identify important design issues that allow us to improve the overall performances. %K Wireless Networks %K Sensor Networks %K Performance Evaluation %U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=817