Utilization of channel properties for channel access in ad hoc networks with heterogeneous channels

We consider an ad hoc network consisting of frequency-agile radios that have the ability to change their carrier frequency and transmission rate over a wide range of possibilities. The radios in this type of network are permitted to utilize multiple nonoverlapping channels, and each channel differs significantly in its characteristics, such as achievable data rate, communication range, and traffic load. We introduce a new channel-access protocol for this type of network such that the selection of a traffic channel for a data packet transmission considers characteristics of the channels such as data rate, range, and load. We show that by accounting for these channel characteristics, our protocol is able to maintain high network-layer performance in a wide range of scenarios compared to a channel-access protocol that assumes homogeneous channels (when in fact the channels are heterogeneous), and channel-access protocols that only consider the data rate associated with a particular traffic channel.