An efficient cluster-based multi-channel management protocol for wireless Ad Hoc networks

—In Ad Hoc networking, cluster-based communication protocol can reduce large amount of flooding packets in route establishment process. However, the 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol is not dedicated to cluster-based network architecture. Applying 802.11 MAC protocol to cluster-based network introduces problems of inefficient channel utilization in announcement traffic indication message (ATIM) and data sub-windows for gateway nodes, heavy channel contention in some channels, large power consumption of mobile hosts, and poor utilization of multichannel resources. In this paper, we propose a MAC layer multi-channel management protocol which takes power saving issues into consideration in a cluster-based network topology. The proposed protocol aims at effective utilization of multi-channel bandwidth for data communications among mobile hosts. Features of the proposed protocol includes: (1) preserving the property of fair channel contention in original 802.11 protocol, (2) con...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: COMCOM
• Authors: Gwo-Jong Yu, Chih-Yung Chang
• Keywords: Cluster-based Network, COMCOM 2007, Mobile Hosts, Power Consumption