TDMA service for sensor networks

Sensors networks are often constrained by limited power and limited communication range. If a sensor receives two messages simultaneously then they collide and both messages become incomprehensible. In this paper we present a simple time division multiple access (TDMA) algorithm for assigning time slots to sensors and show that it provides a significant reduction in the number of collisions incurred during communication. We present TDMA algorithms customized for different communication patterns, namely, broadcast, convergecast and local gossip, that occur commonly in sensor networks. Our algorithms are self-stabilizing, i.e., TDMA is restored even if the system reaches an arbitrary state where the sensors are corrupted or improperly initialized.