Multichannel MAC Protocols for Wireless Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we propose two new MAC protocols for multichannel operation in wireless ad hoc and mesh networks. The first protocol, extended receiver directed transmission protocol (xRDT) is based on a previously known multichannel solution called receiver directed transmission (RDT) that uses a notion of quiescent channel. xRDT solves the problems faced by RDT, such as multichannel hidden terminal and deafness, by using an additional busy tone interface and few additional protocol operations. We also develop a novel single interface solution, called local coordination-based multichannel MAC (LCM MAC). LCM MAC performs coordinated channel negotiations and channel switching to provide multichannel support. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these two protocols over two other well-known multichannel protocols - MMAC and DCA - via extensive ns2 simulations