A survey on control separation techniques in multi-radio multi-channel MAC protocols

The rapid diminishing in the cost of commodity wireless hardware in recent years has prompted the use of multiple radios to improve the capacity of wireless networks. However, the research has shown that the improvement obtained from using multiple radios does not solely depend on the number of radios, but primarily on how these radios can be integrated in a constructive manner. A common way of integration multiple radios is to use a dedicated radio for control. To date, a number of multi-radio MAC protocol are employing a dedicated radio to control and coordinate the other radios, though the approaches are varied from one to another. In this paper, the control separation techniques in the multi-radio multi-channel MAC have been surveyed, and a classification of control separation techniques is provided. Moreover, this study points out the open research issues and intends to spark new interests and developments in this field.