Multi-transceiver based MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks

The most popular MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks is IEEE 802.11 MAC specification which allows practical use of eight channels in 802.11a and three in 802.11b. In order to improve network throughput several multi-channel MAC protocols which allow multiple channels operation have been proposed for IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks. However, simultaneous multiple channels operation is still not allowed because there is only one wireless transceiver per node in above schemes. This paper introduces a multi-transceiver based media access control (MAC) protocol for multi-channel IEEE 802.11 ad hoc networks, which can resolve exposed terminals problem, hidden terminals problem and intruding terminals problem effectively. Numerical results show that network throughput is significantly improved with more transceivers per node.