In wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency is mainly achieved by making nodes sleep. In this paper, we present the combination of SERENA, a new node activity scheduling algorithm based on node coloring, with TDMA/CA, a collision avoidance MAC protocol. We show that the combination of these two protocols enables substantial bandwidth and energy benefits for both general and data gathering applications. As a first contribution, we prove that the three-hop node coloring problem is NP-complete. As a second contribution, the overhead induced by SERENA during network coloring is reduced, making possible the use of these protocols even in dense networks with limited bandwidth. The third contribution of this paper is to show that applying any slot assignment algorithm with spatial reuse based on node neighborhood without taking into account link quality can lead to poor performances because of collisions. The use of good quality links will prevent this phenomenon. The fourth contribution consists of optimizing end-to-end delays for data gathering applications, by means of cross-layering with the application. However, color conflicts resulting from topology changes, mobility and late node arrivals can give rise to collisions. As a fifth contribution, we show how the MAC layer can detect color conflicts, and cope with them at the cost of a slightly reduced throughput. Then, we discuss the tradeoff between requesting SERENA to solve the color conflicts and dealing with them at the MAC layer, our third contribution. The combination of SERENA and TDMA/CA is evaluated through simulations on realistic topologies.
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