MSF-MAC: A Multi-Channel MAC Protocol for Long-distance and Anti-interference in Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

On-site monitoring in the energy industry such as photovoltaic power stations is one of the main application areas of wireless sensor networks, with long distances, many nodes, long deployment cycles, and large communication interference. Aiming at these data collection characteristics, we propose a multi-channel MAC protocol which is capable of optimizing the allocation of multiple users for parallel transmission at a low data rate based on the SFs, named MSF-MAC. Based on the channel characteristics and flow characteristics of the data distribution of the acquisition nodes, the traffic adaptive slot allocation and the rate-based multi-spread-spectrum channel allocation algorithm are used to perform real-time coordinated scheduling of network nodes. At the same time, the protocol combines CSMA / polling mechanisms to design a multi-channel MAC protocol for long-distance and anti-interference in WSNs. Simulation experiments in NS2 confirm that the MSF-MAC has similar characteristics to 802.11 in the case of single-channel, and has a better system throughput and a lower average delay than 802.11 in the multi-channel scenario, which reduces the overhead of collisions and retransmissions, and improves the interference immunity of intra-cluster communication.