Energy-saving comparison of asynchronous MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we compare two different types of asynchronous MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The first based on low-power listening (LPL) which uses the transmission of the preamble frame such as (BMAC: Berkeley MAC and XMAC: A Short Preamble MAC) and the subsequent based on beaconing paradigm that uses the transmission of the beacon frame such as (RIMAC: Receiver Initiated MAC). Our experiments are based on the OMNeT++/MiXiM network simulator and implementation details are given in this paper where the energy saving performance is evaluated. The simulation results show that RIMAC saves more energy than XMAC and BMAC while the XMAC is graded second finest ahead of BMAC.