Performance of a Multi-channel MAC Protocol Implemented in Multi-robot System

In the wireless network, the throughput decreases rapidly with increasing the number of nodes while using single-channel communication simultaneously. Using multi-channel schemes is a solution of boosting throughput. In this paper, we present a protocol implementation, utilizing multiple channels in an autonomous multi-robot system which consists of several simple physical robots, in order to improve throughput. Each robot equipped with a single 802.15.4 radio transceiver which provides 16 channels for use. Our schemes employ a common control-channel and data channels. A simple approach based on RTS / CTS message at control-channel is used to dynamically allocate channels for robots in such distributed network. Some practical experiments were done to check whether control channel congestion can occur when the proposed protocols implemented in our robot systems. As a result, the proposed multi-channel protocol can provide a relatively stable and higher throughput than that obtained by using the CSMA with a single-channel, with increasing the number of simultaneous sending robots.