On MAC design for mobility-aware wireless sensor networks

The usage of mobile sink or sensor nodes may improve the performance of some wireless sensor network (WSN) applications, such as wildlife monitoring. Mobility of nodes brings forward communication challenges such as link disconnections, frequent topological changes, increase in collision rate and handover delays in energy-constrained WSNs. To handle media access issues, WSN researchers have proposed different MAC mechanisms. This paper presents important concerns particularly application constraints and protocol features for designing MAC solutions for mobility-aware WSNs. The paper also highlights the general challenges to be addressed in different classes of MAC protocols for mobility-aware WSNs.