The advantage of synchronization is that the delay between the waking up and data transmission states is shorter for sender nodes, which reduces energy consumption. The disadvantage is that regular beacon transmission consumes large amounts of energy and causes interference. Furthermore, all nodes must use a fixed intermittent interval. In the asynchronous method, each node can communicate with other nodes at any given point in time. The advantage of this method is that there is no traffic overhead for synchronization, which reduces energy consumption and results in a highly scalable network. However, in the asynchronous method, the sender node waits in an idle listening state until the receiver node awakens, which increases the consumption of energy in sender nodes. In order to save energy, each node must use long intermittent intervals to reduce its own duty cycle; however, this also results in the consumption of large amounts of energy in sender nodes. In terms of the overhead for control of synchronization with other nodes, the latter is superior in terms of saving energy and enhancing scalability in systems with low packet generation rates. Here, we classify the asynchronous control method into two subtypes, namely, sender-driven and receiver-driven type, depending on whether the sender or the receiver initiates communication. In either type, packet collisions must be controlled since nodes can commence communication at any given point in time in an asynchronous control method. We focus on the smart meter system [11] as an application that requires a high packet collection ratio and operates for several years without the need for replacing the battery in a situation where the data generation frequency is comparatively small. Hence, in a case where sensor nodes with intermittent operation form an ad hoc network, the asynchronous method is best suited for our purposes. In addition, our target application must be adaptable to occasional burst traffic conditions in order for a network employing this system to be usable in various security management systems. The _low power listening_ (LPL) protocol is a sender-driven asynchronous type of ad hoc network system [9]. The basic intermittent operation of LPL (B-MAC [4]) is shown in Figure 1(a). Receiver nodes 1 and 2 intermittently check the state of the channel. If the channel is idle, they return to the'sleep' state, and if it is busy, they enter the 'data wait' state. After receiving data packets intended for them, nodes return 'acknowledge' packets. For instance, when node 3 is ready to send data to node 1, it continuously sends preamble packets for a period of time which is longer than the intermittent interval in order to activate the channel. After sending preamble packets, node 3 sends a data packet. However, there are a number of restrictions in this protocol; for example, when the intermittent interval is comparatively long, each sender node occupies the channel for a long period of time while transmitting preamble packets. This occupation of the channel interferes with the communication between neighboring nodes. As another example, each sender node transmits data packets only toward a specific node, which entails poor tolerance with regard to node failure. In order to overcome these drawbacks of LPL, we proposed the _intermittent receiver-driven data transmission_ (IRDT) protocol in our previous work [12]. IRDT is one of the receiver-driven MAC protocols where communication between two nodes commences when receiver nodes transmit their own IDs and sender nodes receive them. IRDT addresses some of the restrictions of LPL; for example, it does not occupy the channel when the intermittent interval is long, and it can select a neighboring node as a receiver node from multiple neighbors, which can be used for constructing a mesh network at the MAC layer. In IRDT, receiver nodes transmit small packets containing their own ID (denoted as ID packet) periodically and intermittently.