MC-EDF: A control-channel based wireless multichannel MAC protocol with real-time support

Wireless networks are making their way into new application areas which have traditionally utilized wired networks as the underlying communication medium. The migration to a wireless medium leads to a cut-down in bandwidth. Even though many parallel frequency channels are available, often only a single frequency is used by today´s standard implementations. Furthermore, application areas such as networked industrial control systems are dependent upon hard real-time services being provided by underlying layers. In order to meet this demands, and at the same time increase network bandwidth, we present a deterministic wireless multichannel MAC protocol, called MC-EDF, which can provide real-time guarantees for deadline-seeking traffic. One channel is used for control traffic, while the rest of the channels are used for data traffic. Simulation results indicate that a utilization of the data channels of 90% is reachable without any missed deadlines.