Beacon-based channel assignment and jammer mitigation for MANETs with multiple interfaces and multiple channels

• working for multi-interface multi-channel MANETs
• being totally distributed i.e. no CCC or central entity
• enhancing throughput and reducing interference
• improving connectivity by balancing stations that are in the same vicinity and using the same
• channel
• performing adaptive channel assignment against jamming

The capability of accessing multiple channels through multiple interfaces improve network capacity and is desirable for future Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs). However, due to the presence of jammers as well as mobility and ad-hoc features, MANETs require distributed and efficient resource management for channel assignment. To address the channel assignment problem, which is a non-deterministic polynomial-time hard (NP-hard) problem, we propose a heuristic algorithm called Channel Assignment and JAmmer Mitigation (CA-JAM). The CA-JAM algorithm assigns a distinct channel for every interface of one station, and then all stations exchange the assignment information through beacon frames on every individual interface. When one station receives a beacon, the station organizes the information into tables. Therefore, each station, distributively, uses the table to reduce the number of neighboring stations using the same channel to avoid interference which in turn improves the throughput. The tables are also used to learn the disconnected neighbors due to jamming so as to mitigate the effect of jamming and maintain connectivity. CA-JAM is fully distributed with no use of control channel or central entity; thus, it improves connectivity and reduces interference by balancing stations over the available channels while mitigating jamming effects from multi channel multi interface MANETs. We confirm that CA-JAM outperforms existing protocols using the OPNET simulator.

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