Challenges in the design of the MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks using VHDL

In the design of MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSN) it is necessary to fulfill some requirements such as low energy consumption, scalability, simplicity, etc. These requirements are not easy to fulfill from the viewpoint of implementation on FPGA or ASIC technologies. Therefore, in this paper we identify some challenges encountered during the design of MAC protocol for WSN. For some of these challenges, potential solutions are discussed. To illustrate the proposed solutions SMAC protocol is chosen. VHDL design of the S-MAC protocols is experimentally verified on the Altera EP2C5 FPGA development system.