McMAC: A Multi-Channel MAC Proposal for Ad-Hoc Wireless Networks

Traditionally, all devices of an ad hoc wireless network uses the same frequency band (or channel) for communication. Quite often, however, multiple channels are available but each device cannot operate on all channels concurrently. In such case, multi-channel MAC protocols enable pairs of devices to communicate on different channels simultaneously to increase network throughput. In this paper, we describe one such protocol called McMAC. The goal of this protocol is to increase the throughput of an ad hoc network in which each device has only 1 frequency-agile radio. Currently, we focus on the simple case where the ad hoc network is single hop.