An efficient channel scanning and selection scheme for multi-channel MAC protocols in WSNs

A multi-channel approach for MAC protocols is one of the most significant issues in recent research trend of WSNs. Numerous studies on multi-channel MAC protocols have focused on how to select and allocate channels efficiently to links or nodes. However, existing studies do not consider interferences from different communication technologies in the same band such as IEEE 802.11 in ISM band. In addition, these studies use traditional channel scanning methods and it can cause huge performance degradation in terms of latency, throughput, and energy consumption due to the increased number of channel scanning. To alleviate the problem, we propose an efficient channel scanning algorithm which reduces the number of channel scanning in cluster-based WSN. Based on the proposed channel scanning algorithm, we also propose a priority-based channel allocation algorithm to provide efficient channel allocation for both traffic load and estimation of channel condition. Through extensive simulations, we validate that our scheme exhibits low communication overhead and high channel utilization.