DYNAMMA: A DYNAmic Multi-channel Medium Access Framework for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

This paper introduces a scheduled-access, multi-channel medium access control (MAC) framework for wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks (MANETs). The proposed framework dubbed dynamic multi-channel medium access, or DYNAMMA, features: (1) ability to dynamically adapt to application-specific traffic patterns, (2) collision-free, multi-channel operation, (3) energy efficiency, and (4) minimum signaling overhead. We evaluate DYNAMMA through extensive simulations and compare its performance against scheduled-access (e.g., TRAMA) and contention-based (e.g., 802.11) MAC protocols for different application scenarios. Our results show that DYNAMMA's ability to perform collision-free transmission over multiple channels significantly increases system capacity through higher channel utilization and spatial re-use. When compared to TRAMA, DYNAMMA's efficiency in terms of signaling overhead yields considerable energy savings as well as queueing delay reduction. We also present an implementation of DYNAMMA over an Ultra-Wideband (UWB) radio testbed. Our UWB testbed results indicate that DYNAMMA can achieve both high channel utilization (close to 90% for our experiments) and high energy efficiency (nodes, on average, sleep one third of the time).