Comparison of Multichannel MAC Protocols

This paper compares, analytically and through simulations, a number of multichannel MAC protocols. We first classify these protocols into four categories based on their principles of operation: Dedicated Control Channel, Common Hopping, split phase, and parallel rendezvous protocols. We then examine the effects of the number of channels and devices, channel switching times, and traffic patterns on the throughput and delay of the protocols. Here are some of the conclusions of our study: 1) Parallel Rendezvous protocols perform generally better than Single Rendezvous protocols; 2) Dedicated Control Channel protocols can be a good approach with its simplicity when the number of channels is high and the packets are long; 3) Split Phase protocol is very sensitive to the durations of the control and data phases. Our study focuses on a single collision domain.