MX-MAC: A Multichannel based low latency asynchronous MAC protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we propose a Multichannel based X-MAC protocol (MX-MAC) with the objective of eliminating hidden node problem of existing asynchronous X-MAC protocol, as well as reducing average packet delay. To address the hidden terminal problems, multi channel enables a receiver to send a preamble with next receiver ID on the control channel to notify its neighbors that an ongoing reception is in progress and alert intended next hop neighbor to wake up on time as well as to forward received data to next hop without sending any additional preamble. As a result, packet collisions are reduced with an increase of network throughput. We compare our algorithm with X-MAC and X-MAC/CA. Simulation results show that the proposed technique can significantly improve the throughput as well as can reduce average packet delay.