Performance Research and Simulation Analysis of the MAC Layer Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

The MAC protocol plays a significant role in determining the performance of communication in WSNs. In this paper, our attention is focused on the performance research of MAC layer. We compare and analyze the performance of IEEE 802.11, S-MAC and IEEE 802.15.4 including packet delivery ratio, average delay, RTS/CTS overhead and energy consumption. Simulation results reveal that S-MAC is suitable for cooperative and delay tolerance sensor network application. On the other hand, IEEE 802.15.4 is applied to a low data rate and short distance communication sensor network. Moreover, IEEE 802.15.4 has a better performance in energy-conservation and latency than S-MAC in our simulation.