Advantages of Dual Channel
MAC for Wireless Sensor Networks
A. G. Ruzzelli, G. O`Hare, R. Jurdak, and R. Tynan. Abstract
Traditional
low cost radios for wireless sensor networks operate with one frequency channel
at any given time. However, recent advances in radio hardware for WSNs made
available transceivers that can support two simultaneous channels. In this
work, we investigate the benefits of using two parallel independent frequency
channels at the MAC layer. In particular, the paper introduces a technique of
Dual Channel Multiple Access with Adaptive Preamble (DCMA/AP). The protocol
uses two separate frequencies for data and control packets to avoid the use of
handshake mechanisms (e.g. RTS/CTS) in order to reduce energy consumption and
packet delay. To address the hidden and exposed terminal problems, DCMA/AP
enables a receiver to send a busy tone signal on the control channel to notify
neighbors that an ongoing reception is in progress. As a result, packet
collisions are nullified with an increase of node throughput. Furthermore, an adaptive preamble mechanism
in DCMA/AP avoids secondary processes of node synchronization together with a
reduction of idle listening of receiving nodes that are considered to be one of
the major sources of energy consumption in wireless sensor networks. Finally,
DCMA/AP introduces a mechanism of opportunistic crossover speeds up the process
of packet forwarding by pre-announcing the successive candidate node intended
to receive the packet.
Proceedings
of the 1st International Workshop on Software for Sensor Networks (SensorWare) at COMSWARE06.