A hybrid multi-channel based Medium Access Control mechanism for WLAN

The evolution of modern communication technologies is steadily advancing the physical layer (PHY) data rate in WLANs. However, because of the current Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols, which allocate the whole channel as a single resource, the overhead of the MAC grows along with the PHY data rates. Ultimately, the data throughput efficiency of the system degrades. This paper puts forward a multi-channel MAC protocol, which argues that the channel should be divided into several separate sub-channels, so that multiple stations can contend for and transmit messages on different sub-channels simultaneously, thereby increasing the throughput of the system. Finally, the multi-channel MAC protocol is compared with the traditional MAC protocol by theoretical analysis and simulation, and the results show that the multi-channel MAC protocol can get a better system throughput.