RMAC: Renewal theory Media Access Control for periodic Wireless Sensor Networks

Duty cycling has proven to be an effective Media Access Control strategy for Wireless Sensor Networks. Predominantly for duty cycled networks, frame length determines the frequency at which nodes wake up and is a key parameter for controlling power consumption. If nodes wake up too frequently power is wasted initialising and powering down idle circuits, if nodes wake up too infrequently, delay is increased. RMAC is a novel MAC protocol that adapts a nodes frame length to traffic patterns. For networks in which traffic patterns are not known a priori, simulation results show RMAC saves significantly more power compared to HYMAC, a state of the art protocol with a prefixed frame length.