Q-DMAC: Quality-Aware Distributed Channel Selection MAC Protocol for Enhancing Multi-Channel Communication in Directional Sensor Networks

The performance of wireless networks has continuously improved using Directional Wireless Sensor Networks (DSNs). DSN achieves this by enhancing data sensing accuracy, maximizing spectrum use, decreasing interference and collisions, and lengthening the network’s operating lifetime. Within the domain of Directional Sensor Networks (DSNs), the primary difficulties are coordinating transmission and reception possibilities for a variety of sender-receiver pairs and offering traffic priority-aware channel access. To improve the quality and efficiency of multi-channel communication in DSNs, this research presents a quality-aware Directional MAC, Q-DMAC a novel medium access control protocol. The novelty of our protocol lies in its ability to leverage multi-channel resources effectively, enabling reuse through nodes equipped with directional antennas while ensuring the Quality of Service (QoS). Proposed Q-DMAC assigns a higher number of slots inside a data window to nodes carrying more packets waiting to be sent and prioritizes medium access to nodes carrying a significant amount of data packets. Also by employing regret matching of game theory Q-DMAC selects channels resulting in reduced channel switching cost as well as computation cost. Simulation results demonstrate that Q-DMAC outperforms existing protocols such as CAR MAC, 2D-CMD MAC, and DCDS-MAC, achieving up to 20% higher throughput, 15% lower latency, 12% better packet delivery ratio, 25% longer network lifetime, and 15% reduced overhead.