Survey Paper: A survey on multi-channel communication in wireless sensor networks

  • Authors:

  • Ozlem Durmaz Incel

  • Affiliations:

  • Computer Networks Research Laboratory, Netlab, Department of Computer Engineering, Bogazici University, Bebek, 34342 Istanbul, Turkey

  • Venue:
  • Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

The ability of newer generations of commercially available radios used on the sensor nodes to tune their operating frequency over different channels provides an opportunity to alleviate the effects of interference and consequently improve the network performance. In this paper we investigate the use of multi-channel communication to improve the capacity of wireless sensor networks. We provide an extensive survey in the field together with discussing the research challenges. Initially, we focus on the capacity issues in wireless sensor networks and identify the limiting factors on the capacity improvements. Then, we provide a brief survey on multi-channel communication in wireless ad hoc networks, which share similar characteristics with wireless sensor networks, and next focus on the multi-channel communication in wireless sensor networks. According to this survey, we observe that many of the protocols do not properly address the challenges of multi-channel communication, such as the channel overlaps. Related to these issues, we point out the possible future research directions in the field and list the properties of a well-designed multi-channel protocol for wireless sensor networks.