Efficient Dual Channel Multiple Access for Multihop Wireless Networks

A novel dual channel multiple access (DCMA) protocol is proposed for multihop wireless networks to efficiently resolve hidden and exposed terminal problems and improve the probability of concurrent packet transmissions. By optimizing the slots on control channel and data channel, DCMA can achieve optimal transmission balance, and concurrent reservation access and collision-free data packet transmissions. The dual reservation mechanisms of reservation slots and contention minislots are also proposed to effectively decrease the probability of reservation collisions and greatly improve channel access efficiency. Simulation results show that compared to IEEE 802.11 DCF and π-Mc protocols, DCMA improves the throughput by up to 151% under the same total data rate.