ABSTRACT
This chapter explores performance metrics for the evaluation of media access control (MAC) protocols are presented after discussing different MAC protocols’ performances. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consisting of a dense network with heavy communication have to handle traffic efficiently with low-power constraints. In general, MAC protocols are responsible for framing, medium access, reliability, flow control, and error control in the network. The latency and delay is a measure of the time taken by the MAC layer to send a packet from the sender node to the reception of a packet at the MAC layer. A general model for MAC protocol selection was proposed in WSNs, whereby the thumb rule of protocol selection was mathematically and analytically proved. Priority-based scheduling MAC protocols prioritize the links or the nodes, which are derived from a random function. Contention-based MAC protocols overcome the limitations of synchronization of nodes and overhead of control messages.
