Redundant Communication Avoidance for Event-Driven Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, we introduce a new medium access control (MAC) protocol for event-driven wireless sensor networks (WSN). Generally, there are three models of WSN: continuous, on-demand and event-driven. They have different characteristics and each requires a different design model. In the event-driven WSN, the sensors send data only when certain events occur. Normally, the sensors do not have much data to send. When an event occurs, many sensors in the network sense this event and send an alert to the sink at the same time. These alerts are often redundant and the sensors waste energy transmitting redundant information. In WSN, over-hearing is often considered a cause of energy waste. However, in the event-driven wireless sensor network, we show that overhearing can be an efficient method to reduce redundant communication in sensor networks. Hence, it can save energy and extend the lifetime of sensor networks.