OBMAC: An Overhearing Based MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose OBMAC, an enhancement for medium access control (MAC) protocol based on the overhearing technique in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this type of networks, sensors are spatially correlated and they often sense and send the same information to the sink. Therefore, sensors waste energy in transmitting redundant data. Here, we want to find a method to reduce these redundant transmissions. Although in WSN, overhearing is often considered a cause of energy waste. In this paper, we want to show that overhearing is not always an energy waste. Moreover, it can be an efficient method to reduce redundant transmissions in sensor networks, thus diminishing energy consumption and transmission delay. Hence, the network lifetime can last longer and the sink receives events within shorter delays. We propose to apply our technique in IEEE 802.15.4, a recent standard for WSN. By simulation and experimentation, we prove that OBMAC overpasses IEEE 80215.4 in terms of energy consumption and transmission delay.