Network Layer Negotiation-Based Channel Assignment in Multi-Channel Wireless Networks

Most wireless ad hoc networks research assumes a common communication channel. Using multiple channels can increase network capacity by transmitting traffic on different channels in an interference area. Channel assignment is a critical issue for the multi-channel scheme. Proactive receiver-based channel assignment (RCA) which is a network layer multichannel solution has shown better performance compared to single common channel solutions. However, channel collision cannot be resolved in some scenarios and a large number of orthogonal channels are needed with the RCA scheme. This paper proposes an on-demand negotiation-based channel assignment (NCA) that determines the communicating channel using the network topology and the dynamic traffic. We extend the OLSR (optimized link state routing) protocol to support NCA. Simulation results with NS-2 indicate considerable performance improvement on throughput and end-to-end delay of NCA over RCA for most scenarios.