A Multifrequency MAC Specially Designed for Wireless Sensor Network Applications
Abstract
Multifrequency media access control has been well understood in
general wireless ad hoc networks, while in wireless sensor networks,
researchers still focus on single frequency solutions. In wireless
sensor networks, each device is typically equipped with a single
radio transceiver and applications adopt much smaller packet sizes
compared to those in general wireless ad hoc networks. Hence, the
multifrequency MAC protocols proposed for general wireless ad hoc
networks are not suitable for wireless sensor network applications,
which we further demonstrate through our simulation experiments. In
this article, we propose MMSN, which takes advantage of
multifrequency availability while, at the same time, takes into
consideration the restrictions of wireless sensor networks. Through
extensive experiments, MMSN exhibits the prominent ability to utilize
parallel transmissions among neighboring nodes. When multiple physical
frequencies are available, it also achieves increased energy
efficiency, demonstrating the ability to work against radio
interference and the tolerance to a wide range of measured time
synchronization errors.