A Practical Multi-Channel Media Access Control Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Despite availability of multiple orthogonal communication channels on common sensor network platforms, such as MicaZ motes, and despite multiple simulation-supported designs of multi-channel MAC protocols, most existing sensor networks use only one channel for communication, which is a source of bandwidth inefficiency. In this work, the authors design, implement, and experimentally evaluate a practical MAC protocol which utilizes multiple channels efficiently for WSNs. A control theory approach is used to dynamically allocate channels for each mote in a distributed manner transparently to the application and routing layers.