TFMAC: Multi-channel MAC Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we introduce TFMAC, a hybrid MAC protocol especially designed for wireless sensor networks in which each sensor node is equipped with a single half-duplex transceiver with multiple-frequency support. TFMAC incorporates multiple channels into a traditional TDMA scheme allowing different sensor nodes in a neighborhood to transmit on different channels simultaneously. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed multiple-channel protocol provides higher maximum throughput and smaller average packet delay in respect to the basic single-channel TDMA scheme.