Multi-channel cooperative MAC protocol for wireless LANs

Traditional IEEE 802.11-based wireless LANs use only a single channel in order to ensure the connectivity of networks, although multi-channel capability is available to provide higher network throughput by allowing simultaneous multiple transmissions that do not interfere with each other. However, using multiple channels results in several new challenges: finding the receiver, scheduling the next transmission, and balancing the load among channels. This paper proposes a novel and efficient control-channel-based, multi-channel mechanism that uses a single transceiver. Simulation results indicate that the proposed mechanism effectively exploits all available data channels with multiple packet transmissions, provides high network throughput, and requires a low overhead. For example, when we have 13 channels with a 54 Mbps data rate, the proposed mechanism provides 349 Mbps throughput, while the IEEE 802.11 MAC with a single channel achieves only 13 Mbps throughput.