  This paper proposes a channel access control scheme fit to dense acoustic
sensor nodes in a sensor network. In the considered scenario, multiple acoustic
sensor nodes within communication range of a cluster head are grouped into
clusters. Acoustic sensor nodes in a cluster detect acoustic signals and
convert them into electric signals (packets). Detection by acoustic sensors can
be executed periodically or randomly and random detection by acoustic sensors
is event driven. As a result, each acoustic sensor generates their packets
(50bytes each) periodically or randomly over short time intervals
(400ms~4seconds) and transmits directly to a cluster head (coordinator node).
Our approach proposes to use a slotted carrier sense multiple access. All
acoustic sensor nodes in a cluster are allocated to time slots and the number
of allocated sensor nodes to each time slot is uniform. All sensor nodes
allocated to a time slot listen for packet transmission from the beginning of
the time slot for a duration proportional to their priority. The first node
that detect the channel to be free for its whole window is allowed to transmit.
The order of packet transmissions with the acoustic sensor nodes in the time
slot is autonomously adjusted according to the history of packet transmissions
in the time slot. In simulations, performances of the proposed scheme are
demonstrated by the comparisons with other low rate wireless channel access
schemes.
