SSCH

TLDR

Capacity improvement is one of the principal challenges in wireless networking. The authors propose SSCH, a link‑layer protocol that boosts IEEE 802.11 network capacity through frequency diversity. SSCH is implemented in software on standard 802.11 cards, with nodes hopping across channels so that communicating pairs overlap while others avoid interference, achieved via a novel distributed rendezvous and synchronization scheme. Simulations demonstrate that SSCH markedly increases network capacity in both multi‑hop and single‑hop wireless scenarios.

Abstract

Capacity improvement is one of the principal challenges in wireless networking. We present a link-layer protocol called Slotted Seeded Channel Hopping, or SSCH, that increases the capacity of an IEEE 802.11 network by utilizing frequency diversity. SSCH can be implemented in software over an IEEE 802.11-compliant wireless card. Each node using SSCH switches across channels in such a manner that nodes desiring to communicate overlap, while disjoint communications mostly do not overlap, and hence do not interfere with each other. To achieve this, SSCH uses a novel scheme for distributed rendezvous and synchronization. Simulation results show that SSCH significantly increases network capacity in several multi-hop and single-hop wireless networking scenarios.