An energy-efficient MAC protocol in track-based wireless sensor networks

This paper propose a MAC protocol for efficient energy utilization in wireless sensor network. For our protocol, a sensor network field is divided into multiple virtual areas called a track. In a track, only one sensor node is activated to participate in data forwarding and the other nodes in the track stay in sleep state for energy saving. Each node in the track can wake up at its own timeslot assigned to the track to transmit or receive data. The proposed scheme reduces unnecessary energy consumption due to collision and overhearing by allowing nodes to wake up and listen only during the timeslot assigned to the track.