Energy-efficient medium access control for wireless sensor networks

Energy efficiency is a primary issue for the performance of a wireless sensor network. This paper works on both communication and transmission to reduce unnecessary energy waste, i.e., to conserve energy consumption, for a wireless sensor network. To improve idle listening, for example, we allow sensor nodes to activate or sleep periodically; to improve collision and overhearing, we use an algorithm to alternate the wakeup time of neighboring sensor nodes and thus reduce transmission latency.