A Novel Multi-Channel MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

The medium access control (MAC) protocol, which coordinates channel access between wireless stations, significantly affects network throughput of wireless ad hoc networks. A MAC protocol that is based on a multi-channel model can achieve high throughput by enabling more simultaneous transmission pairs in the network. In this paper, we investigate different designs of multi-channel MAC protocols and classify them according to different negotiation strategies for channel selection. We then propose a novel design by combining the advantages of two different categories. The simulation results show that our proposed protocol can significantly outperform two representative protocols