Enabling rapid prototyping of reconfigurable MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks

Various emerging applications enabled by wireless sensor networks demand new and versatile MAC algorithms. These MAC protocols should be able to adapt to varying application requirements and deployment conditions. In this paper, we present a component based scheme for enabling fast prototyping of MAC protocols using a lightweight tool chain. Our tool chain allows run-time MAC protocol reconfiguration by controlling the data path and the execution flow of the constituent components. Our approach of composing protocols based on common MAC components aims at reducing the protocol prototyping efforts. Moreover, our toolchain implemented for various sensor nodes provides a platform independent MAC meta-language which simplifies the protocol designing, testing and debugging processes. Empirical tests conducted on commercially available sensor nodes show that our approach enables run-time reconfiguration for MAC protocols with affordable memory consumption and execution overhead.