The analysis and the evaluation of the performance of the channel switching penalty constrained Multi-Channel networks

The multi-channel switching penalty forces terminals to incur a delay cost when switching from one channel to the other. The delay cost does degrade the performance of multi-channel networks. The channel switching penalty is not avoidable; however, optimization techniques can be implemented to minimize its effects. In this study, we analyze the impact of channel switching penalty on collided and dropped packets, when it is associated with data channels. The paper evaluates the implementation of the proposed data channel switching penalty technique; and compares it with similar schemes. The performance of multi-channel MAC protocols implementing a common control channel are evaluated through NS 2 simulations. In general, our approach performed better in both lost bandwidth and dropped packets. It was superior in dropping the least number of packets. The results also show possible ways of improving the capacity and the performance of the multi-channel networks.