Citation: Beg, A.; Mostafa, S.M.;
AbdulGhaffar, A.; Sheltami, T.R.;
Mahmoud, A. An Adaptive and
Spectrally Efficient Multi-Channel
Medium Access Control Protocol for
Dynamic Ad Hoc Networks. Sensors
2022, 22, 8666. https://doi.org/
10.3390/s22228666
Academic Editors: Alvaro Araujo
Pinto and Hacene Fouchal
Received: 11 October 2022
Accepted: 7 November 2022
Published: 10 November 2022
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Article
An Adaptive and Spectrally Efficient Multi-Channel Medium
Access Control Protocol for Dynamic Ad Hoc Networks
Abdurrahman Beg
1,
* , Saud Mohammad Mostafa
2
, AbdulAziz AbdulGhaffar
3
, Tarek R. Sheltami
2,4
and Ashraf Mahmoud
2,4
1
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne 3800, Australia
2
Department of Computer Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals,
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
3
Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
4
Interdisciplinary Research Center of Smart Mobility and Logistics, King Fahd University of Petroleum and
Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
* Correspondence: abdurrahman.beg@monash.edu
Abstract:
Medium access control (MAC) protocols in ad hoc networks have evolved from single-
channel independent transmission mechanisms to multi-channel concurrent mechanisms to efficiently
manage the demands placed on modern networks. The primary aim of this study is to compare
the performance of popular multi-channel MAC (MMAC) protocols under saturated network traffic
conditions and propose improvements to the protocols under these conditions. A novel, dynamically
adaptive MMAC protocol was devised to take advantage of the performance capabilities of the
evaluated protocols in changing wireless ad hoc network conditions. A simulation of the familiar
MAC protocols was developed based on a validated simulation of the IEEE 802.11 standard. Further,
the behaviors and performances of these protocols are compared against the proposed MMAC
protocols with a varying number of ad hoc stations and concurrent wireless channels in terms of
throughput, Jain’s fairness index, and channel access delay. The results show that the proposed
MMAC protocol, labeled E-SA-MMAC, outperforms the existing protocols in throughput by up to
11.9% under a constrained number of channels and in channel access delays by up to 18.3%. It can be
asserted from these observations that the proposed approach provides performance benefits against
its peers under saturated traffic conditions and other factors, such as the number of available wireless
channels, and is suitable for dynamic ad hoc network deployments.
Keywords:
medium access control; multi-channel MAC protocol; ad hoc networks; adaptive MMAC;
wireless communication
1. Introduction
In recent times, there has been an exponential growth of network-capable devices
wirelessly connecting to the grid. Devices communicate over the internet through various
means, such as 5G cellular [
1
,
2
], Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and other network technologies. The
advent of technologies, such as the Internet-of-Things (IoT) [
3
], gives physical objects
of any size IP addresses, and has sprouted further explorations into novel applications,
such as connected cars and the internet of drones [
4
,
5
]. These wireless applications have
primarily two methods of connecting to the network, infrastructure-based or peer-to-peer
ad hoc-based, and in some cases, a hybrid of both technologies.
Wireless local area networks (WLANs) enable devices to communicate without requir-
ing physical cable links connecting the network. The building blocks of WLANs involve the
basic service set (BSS). The BSS can have two different architectures based on the presence
or absence of the access point (AP) [6,7].
• Ad hoc network: Does not contain any APs and devices communicate without it.
• Infrastructure network: The AP is the centralized node and all traffic flow through it.
Sensors 2022, 22, 8666. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22228666 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
