Multichannel medium access control for ad hoc wireless networks

In this paper, we study the multichannel exposed terminal problem in multihop wireless networks. We propose a multichannel medium access control (MAC) protocol, called multichannel MAC protocol with hopping reservation (MMAC-HR), to resolve the multichannel exposed terminal problem. MMAC-HR uses two radio interfaces; one interface is fixed over the control channel, and the other interface switches dynamically between data channels. The fixed interface supports broadcast information and reserves a data channel for any data transmission. The switchable interface, on other hand, is for data exchanges and follows independent slow hopping without requiring clock synchronization. In addition, the proposed protocol is a distributed one. By using the ns-2 simulator, extensive simulations are performed to demonstrate that MMAC-HR can enhance the network throughput and delay compared with existing multichannel MAC protocol. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.