Abstract:
Wireless Sensor Networks is an emerging technology that has potential usage in a large variety of applications. These networks consist of a large number of sensor nodes. Each of these sensor node is equipped with sensor, a small microprocessor and a low power radio. These nodes are generally battery operated and communicate wirelessly. In most of the scenarios it is not feasible to replenish the battery once expired, hence energy efficiency is an important goal for all the sensor network protocols. Also, the emerging advanced applications of wireless sensor networks require high throughput and low latency, which demands effective use of the available bandwidth. This is the responsibility of a MAC protocol.
Most of the MAC protocols proposed till now consider only a single channel of operation. But low power low cost radios with abilities to work on multiple channels are already available. These radios cannot transmit and receive at the same time but can switch their frequency/channel dynamically. These channels are orthogonal to each other. This provides one more degree of freedom for wireless communication which is yet unexploited.
In this work we have proposed a contention-based MAC protocol using channel switching. In this protocol we divide the time frame into slots. The nodes then negotiate a slot and a channel value for communication and then multiple communications are carried out in parallel. This protocol is implemented in Castalia simulator and simulation results have been compared with the traditional single channel SMAC. and TMAC protocols. Our protocol clearly indicates the improvement in latency and energy consumption by effective use of the channels.
