Multi-channel contention estimate (MCCE): An approach to assign channels for multiple rendezvous MAC protocols in ad hoc networks

At present, multiple rendezvous applications, which use only single-transceiver radios to communicate on multiple channels, are widely used in multi-hop ad hoc networks. However, with increasing demands for communication, it is difficult for nodes to obtain an efficiently wireless channel allocation. The root cause is that some matched transceiver-pairs of nodes must exist that cannot correspond with each other; nevertheless, several channels are available in the network in any previous multiple rendezvous approaches. In this paper, a novel distributed algorithm called MCCE is presented to assign snooping channels for nodes by utilising only the status of neighbours within a 2-hop range of the node. Compared with previous 'similar fair' approaches, MCCE can improve the performances of MAC protocols in two conditions. If there is no idle-channel in a node's 2-hop range, then MCCE will direct a best snooping-channel to decrease the potential of channel contention. If there are mass idle channels in a node's 2-hop range, then MCCE will direct a snooping-channel to improve the throughput, similar to non-collision channel assignment approaches, which are NP complete.