ABSTRACT
The limitations with these one-channel protocols can be overcome using multiple
channels. Interference can be greatly reduced by using channels of different frequen-
cies. As a result, simultaneous transmissions in the neighborhood are possible and
throughput can be improved. A number of multi-channelMAC protocols are devised
to coordinate the nodes for communications over multiple channels. As summarized
in Sects. 4.2.2 and 4.2.3, they mainly concentrate on the design of channel assign-
ment/coordination and medium access mechanisms with one or more transceivers.
However, since channel quality is not taken into account, these protocols may end
up using channels experiencing severe interference or fading. Therefore, the perfor-
mance of theseMAC protocols is not optimized as link characteristics such as quality,
link reliability, and coherence time2 are not captured.
