PW-MAC: An Energy-Efficient Predictive-Wakeup MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents PW-MAC (Predictive-Wakeup MAC), a new energy-efficient MAC protocol based on asynchronous duty cycling. In PW-MAC, nodes each wake up to receive at randomized, asynchronous times. PW-MAC minimizes sensor node energy consumption by enabling senders to predict receiver wakeup times; to enable accurate predictions, PW-MAC introduces an on-demand prediction error correction mechanism that effectively addresses timing challenges such as unpredictable hardware and operating system delays and clock drift. PW-MAC also introduces an efficient prediction based retransmission mechanism to achieve high energy efficiency even when wireless collisions occur and packets must be retransmitted.