Multi-channel MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks: A schedule-based approach

Limited bandwidth remains a pressing issue for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) due to the half-duplex property of the sensor radio and the broadcast nature of wireless medium. Designing multi-channel MAC protocol attracts the interest of many researchers as a cost effective solution to meet the higher bandwidth demand for the limited bandwidth in WSN. In this paper, we present a scheduled-based multi-channel MAC protocol to improve the network performance. In our protocol, each receiving node selects (schedules) some timeslot(s), in which it may receive data from the intending sender(s). The timeslot selection is done in a conflict free manner, where a node avoids the slots that are already selected by others in its interference range. To minimize the conflicts during timeslot selection, we propose a unique solution by splitting the neighboring nodes into different groups, where nodes of a group may select the slots allocated to that group only. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach thorough simulations in terms of performance parameters such as aggregate throughput, packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, and energy consumption.