C-MAC: a Configurable Medium Access Control Protocol for Sensor Networks

C-MAC is a highly configurable MAC protocol realized as an architecture of medium access control strategies that can be combined to produce application-specific protocols. By selecting the proper strategies and configuring their parameters, programmers can instantiate MAC protocols that closely match their applications' requirements. C-MAC relies on static metaprogramming techniques to achieve high configurability without compromising size and performance. A previous implementation of C-MAC for the Mica2 mote produced B-MAC-like instances that are smaller, faster, and make better use of the network than the original TINYOS B-MAC. In this work, we implemented and evaluated EPOS C-MAC in the scope of the EPOSMote project. The EPOSMote devices used in this work feature an IEEE 802.15.4 compliant radio. This motivated us to evaluate additional configuration parameters, including synchronization (e.g. beacon-based), contention, and data handling (e.g. error detection). As a result, C-MAC has undergone a major redesign and now features an architecture whose elements are more fine-grained and thus can be reused in a larger variety of scenarios.