A Study on Energy Efficient MAC Protocol of Wireless Sensor Network for Ubiquitous Agriculture

Various technologies are used in the agricultural sites now. Especially, the recent application of sensor network related technology is quite notable. Considering the efficiency of MAC protocol of WSN is being researched in various aspects, it is believed that a research on how to apply the MAC protocol to agriculture would be also required. This research is based on the sensor node developed by Sunchon University ITRC. Once the sensor nodes are effectively located in the farm, they operate for a long time and they are rarely relocated once installed. The concentration of multiple sensor nodes in a narrow area is another characteristic the sensor node. The purpose of this research is to select a sensor network MAC protocol, which would be most proper to agricultural site with good energy efficiency and excellent transmission delay performance. The applicable protocols such as S-MAC and X-MAC were set up for the installation environment. They were compared and a methodology to select the most optimum protocol to agricultural site is suggested.