Research of Medium Access Control Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks
无线传感器网络媒质接入控制协议的研究进展

One of the key problem for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is the design of Medium Access Control(MAC) protocol. MAC protocol controls the activity of wireless communication module of sensor nodes, which is the major consumer of sensor energy. The energy efficiency of MAC protocol makes a strong impact on the network performance. This paper describes the sources of energy consumption in MC layer and the design of MAC protocol. Then some factors impacting on the performance of MAC protocol and metrics of performance evaluation are discussed. Finally, the future research direction is summarized.