Ubiquitous Computing and Communication Journal

A Hybrid Multi-channel MAC protocol with Virtual Mechanism and Power

Control for Wireless Sensor Networks
Yang Yuwang*1, Ju Yutao2, Jin Baoshen3,Yu Jimin1 ,Sun Yamin1,Yang Jingyu1
1Computer Department of Nanjing University of Science and Technology,Jiangsu,China
2Mechanical Electrical Engineering Department of Nanjing University of Science and
Technology,Jiangsu,China
3 R&D center, ZTE communication Company,Nanjing,Jiangsu,China
*Corresponding author, E-mail address: yuwangyang608@163.com.
**other authors: E-mail address:{yutaoju,Baoshenjin,jiminyu,yamingsun,jingyuwang}@mail.njust.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
A Hybrid Multi-channel MAC protocol with Virtual Mechanism and Power
Control for Wireless Sensor Networks (HM-VMPC) is designed and implemented
in this paper. This kind of protocol integrates dynamic channel assignment
mechanism and quasi-reservation mechanism effectively. It employs a virtual
MAC frame mechanism to support larger network layer packets, and a
multi-channel virtual carrier sensing mechanism to estimate idle or busy channels
effectively, and has the function of intelligent power control which adjusts the
transmission power levels automatically according to the distance among network
nodes, therefore reduces the energy consumption and prolongs the life of the entire
network. This protocol provides proper solution to the hidden and exposed
terminal problem in wireless sensor network, and improves the network
performance. HM-VMPC is compatible with the physical layer of IEEE 802.15.4
standards, and is able to run on SARD (Sensor Applications Reference Design)
board from Freescale company. The performance of HM-VMPC is tested and
compared with other classical MAC protocols. Experiments show that HM-VMPC
is suitable to solve the problem of hidden and exposed terminal in multi-hop
wireless networks, and can control the power more effectively to reduce the energy
consumption of network nodes for prolonging the life of the entire network.
Keywords: multi-hop wireless network, MAC protocol, dynamic channel
assignment, sensor network
1

INTRODUCTION

MAC layer of wireless sensor networks is

particularly important for controlling all the incoming
and outgoing packet directly. MAC protocols have
direct impact on the utilization of channels, QoS
(Quality of Service) of the entire network and node
battery life [1].The difference of MAC protocols
between wireless and traditional wired network is
that, besides the consideration of fair channel access
and collision-free data transmission, it has to focus on
saving the battery power and improving the
scalability of MAC protocols. In addition, because of
the restriction of sensor node capacity, the MAC
protocol itself cannot be too complicated.
In order to solve the exposed and hidden terminal
problem, channel access fairness, QoS guarantee,
power control and other issues faced by multi-hop
wireless MAC protocols, many wireless MAC
protocols have been put forward which can be
divided into four types. They are schedule based,
competition based, collision-free, and hybrid MAC

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protocols.
Schedule based MAC protocols include
Self-Organizing Medium Access Control for Sensor
Networks(SMACS)[2],Eavesdrop-And-Register
(EAR)[2] algorithm, Distributed Energy Aware MAC
Layer Protocol (DE-MAC)[3], Energy Efficient MAC
protocol for Sensor Networks (EMACS)[4] protocols.
To this kind of protocols, the time period staring from
network nodes embedded with this protocol is
decided by the scheduling algorithm, which fully
adapts to topology change and maintains optimal
network attributes. The disadvantage of SMACS is
that the node coming from different sub-network may
never have communication opportunity. The EAR
algorithm maintains seamless connection among
mobile nodes, but only suitable for those networks
which remain overall static. The core idea of
DE-MAC is to allow nodes to exchange the
energy-level information, but the drawback is that
even while in the time slot of its neighbor node
possession, it must keep awake, too.
Competition based MAC protocols generally

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employ the broadcast channel, and CSMA ( Carrier
Sense Multiple Access ) operation mode, deal with
hidden and exposed terminal problem by signaling
control with additional information. Such protocols
Timeout
include
sensor
MAC(S-MAC)[5],
Directional
MAC
MAC(T-MAC)
Protocol[6],
(D-MAC) [7], Adaptive Rate control protocol [8],
Radio protocol[9], Wise MAC[10], Aloha[11], extended
IEEE 802.11 based Route Access Protocol (RAP)
MAC[12] and non-persistent CSMA with preamble
sample(NP-SCMA-PS)[13]. The S-MAC protocol
employs IEEE802.11 standards to avoid the collision.
However it does not give enough protection to nodes
with less energy. T-MAC employs adaptive
performance parameters based on S-MAC, but it can
not overcome problems such as node early sleep,
virtual cluster and multi-hop synchronization. DMAC
is a MAC layer protocol of high energy efficiency
and low delay based on data assemblage, but it isn't
suitable for data communication among arbitrary
nodes.
Collision-free MAC protocols include Spatial
TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) [13], the
Implicit Prioritized Access Protocol[14] which has
high throughout especially under the circumstance of
high payload. The traffic-adaptive medium access
protocol (TRAMA)[15] which avoids competition
due to concealing interrupt, but brings long delay.
Hybrid MAC protocols include TDMA-DMA[16]
and Contention Aware Transport (CAT)[17].
TDMA-DMA employs the advantages of physical
layer, but its channel utilization rate is low. The
power utilization rate is high for CAT protocol, but
its cost is large for implementing mobile
performance..
The earlier multi-channel MAC protocols mostly
adopt fixed channel assignment mode by using
different band width [16,18] or spreading frequency
codes [19] to divide a single channel into multiple
ones. These protocols reduce collision effectively, but
increase the complication, node cost and energy
consumption.
The study has found that the idle listening is the
major energy consumption in the wireless multi-hop
network, so the protocols with any kind of channel
access mechanism closes the communication
modules while no node data transmission in order to
reduce idle listening for idle energy consumption
reduction. To prevent the sleep mechanism impacting
on neighboring node connection, frame structure is
used to divide into equal interval frame. Nodes in the
entire network or in the same virtual cluster use the
synchronized frame to obtain connection[21].
Intra-node in the slot allocation generally is fair, but
it also selects the key points, and gives the key points
more transmission time slots to adapt the network
communication payload or balance the nodes from
the view of energy consumption [20].
Some MAC protocols such as S-MAC, T-MAC,

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DMAC are single channel protocols whose

performance become worse when the network size
increases. And the unique exposed and hidden
terminal problem cannot always been resolved by
single-channel MAC protocols. The traditional
multi-channel MAC protocols are based on fixed
channel allocation and require more complicated and
expensive hardware. The application of multi-channel
and dynamic channel allocation technology can
completely solve the problem of hidden and exposed
terminals, solve the channel distribution, access
control, collision and competition issues effectively,
further can significantly increase network capacity,
overall performance and network life.
Wireless sensor network nodes are usually
powered by batteries with limited amount of energy.
Some techniques to reduce energy consumption are
of interest. One way to conserve energy is to use
power saving mechanisms[23, 24]. Another technique is
to use power control schemes which suitably change
transmitting power to reduce energy consumption [25,
26, 27,28,29,30]
. Moreover, power control can potentially
be used to improve spatial reuse of the wireless
channel.
In this paper, we design a protocol of
multi-channel MAC protocol-HM-VMPC (a Hybrid
Multi-channel MAC protocol with Virtual
Mechanism and Power Control) based on half-duplex
transceiver.
In second section of this paper a new
multi-channel MAC protocol called HM-VMPC is
designed, which is compatible with the standard
IEEE 802.15.4 physical layer of wireless sensor
networks as well as power control capability. The
overall design of HM-VMPC protocol is analyzed
followed by the main mechanism which the protocol
uses such as virtual carrier sensing, virtual data frame,
dormant mechanism and intelligent power control
strategy.
In third section the HM-VMPC protocol is
implemented under the CodeWarrior IDE by SARD
development board used as multi-hop wireless
network nodes.
In forth section experiments are finished and
compared with several classic single-channel MAC
protocols, so analysis of the advantages and
disadvantages of HM-VMPC is obtained. The
experiment uses four SARD boards as the sensor
node hardware to make up a multi-hop sensor
network to confirm the HM-VMPC protocol
performance, and one personal computer which have
serial port as task management center to demonstrate
the data received by sink nodes. This paper uses
energy consumption and the packets loss rate to
measure the performance of HM-VMPC protocol.
2

HM-VMPC design

2.1 Overall Design of the HM-VMPC protocol

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The overall design of HM-VMPC protocol is as
following
The whole channels are divided into N
sub-channels, and one of these taken as a control
channel is reserved to send control orders, book data
channels. The other sub-channels are taken as data
channels. Dynamic channel assignment and
quasi-reservation mechanism from references
[31,32,33,34]
similar to those from multi-channel CSMA
protocols are applied to manage and maintain these
data channels.
The traditional virtual sensing mechanism [35] is
improved, and virtual multi-channel carrier sensing
scheme for this protocol is designed. This scheme
takes
the
Multiplicative
Increase
Linear
Decrease(MILD) as the retreat algorithm, and is
supported by RTS(request-to-send)/CTS(clear-to-send)/RES(Reservation) Mechanism.
Data channels are reserved by the RTS / CTS /
RES mechanism which runs on the control channel,
and are acceptable to both sides of the receiver and
transmitter.
Traditional stop-wait protocol [36] is improved to
transmit sequence data of virtual sub-frame produced
from its original virtual data frame. After a receiver
completes the reception, it reorganizes the sub-frame
into a complete virtual frame. Further this virtual data
frame is transmitted to the upper network layer, and
then the function of MAC protocol is finished.
Moreover, in this protocol design, the thought of
is
energy consumption reduction from S-MAC[5]
improved to reduce energy consumption of nodes by
the periodic dormant mechanism.
The protocol improves the time synchronization of
TPSN (Timing-sync Protocol for Sensor Networks)
[21]
to be more concise and efficient.
Intelligent power control technology is used to
save energy due to battery life limited, reduce the
packet collision and improve the utilization of
channels.
2.2 Main mechanisms adopted by HM-VMPC
protocol
2.2.1 Dynamic channel assignment and channel
reservation mechanisms
This protocol divides the channel into N
unduplicated sub-channels, and takes a public
sub-channel as the control channel, which is used to
send control command, book data channel, send
broadcasting and so on. Then, the remaining N-1
sub-channels are taken as data channels, and the
dynamic channel assignment technique is adopted to
manage these channels. HM-VMPC protocol can
support 16 sub-channels correspondent to the
hardware design based on IEEE802.15.4 from
Freescale company. Each node maintains a list which
records the current usage of sub-channels, assigns

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dynamic channel for data exchange among nodes on

demand in time. When the nodes need to transmit
data, the protocol books a data channel by
RTS/CTS/RES handshake mechanism, and releases
the channel when the mission completes.
HM-VMPC protocol cites the reservation
mechanism of multi-channel CSMA protocol, and
this kind of multi-channel mechanism based on the
reservation mechanism has better capability
compared with pure stochastic election for idle
channel mechanism. Even the band width of each
sub-channels is very small, the advantage of adopting
reservation mechanism still exists.
2.2.2 RTS-CTS-RES handshake mechanism
HM-VMPC protocol uses sequent three
handshake mechanism of RTS/CTS/RES on the
control channel to book a data channel accepted by
both communication sides. In addition, the adjacent
nodes receive CTS frame and set the promissory
channel busy, use this collaboration to solve the
hidden terminal problem. RES frame is designed to
solve exposed terminal problem, which has the main
contents of promissory channel number and data
length of this communication, it receives adjacent
nodes which send RES frame, gains promissory
channel number and transmission data length,
estimates the sustaining time of exchange data. After
three-time handshake, promissory data channels are
assigned to the two nodes which transmit data this
time. The timing sequence can be seen in Fig.2.1.
2.2.3 Virtual data frame mechanism
After three-times handshake, transmitter and
receiver will monopolize promissory data channel,
begin to send data frame at promissory data channel.
IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function
(DCF)S-MACT-MAC protocols all book to send a
long message data frame after establishing the
communication. HM-VMPC protocol improves this
kind of classical algorithms.
In HM-VMPC, a virtual data frame mechanism is
applied to divide the original virtual data frame into
many sub-virtual frames, and then the improved stopwait protocol is used to transmit sequence data of
virtual sub-frames. The main improvement is in the
following:
At the transmitter node:
1) The MAC layer constructs a sub-data frame
which is waiting to be sent in order, initializes the
frame, and the sequence number is set to be zero,
2) Let the data frame be delivered to the
transmission buffer,
3) The data frame in the buffer is transmitted,
and the channel is sensing to enter wait and
acknowledgment state, and the timer starts at the
same time,

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Transmitter A
Control Channel

L
RTS

Receiver B
Control Channel

CTS

RES

S
RTS

CTS

RES

Transmitter
&Receiver

DATA

ACK

Promissory Channel

Nearby node of A
Control channel

RTS

RES

Nearby node of A

NAV(RES)

Promissory Channel

Nearby node of B

CTS

Control channel

Nearby node of B

NAV(CTS)

Promissory Channel

Figure 2.1: time sequence of node A transmitting data to node B with HM-VMPC protocol
4) If acknowledgment frame ACK is received,
the node judges whether the total number of the data
frame reaches. If it is true, it proves that the virtual
data frame has been sent out completely, then this
data transmission is ended and the node starts to
sense the control channel again. If not, the node
continues to obtain a new data frame in order. If a
denial frame is received or the timing counter is
overtime, then it changes to the step 3) to re-transmit
data frame.
At the receiver node:
1) Parameters are initialized,
2) The node starts to wait for data frame. If it
receives a data frame, examines whether there is
transmission mistake on the CRC check. If there is no
mistake, it continues the next step. If there exists
mistake, then it structures a denial frame to transmit
and goes to step 2) again,
3) The node picks out the data frame ID,
constructs and transmits the ACK frame. If the ID is
not the expected one, then it transfers to step 2). If the
ID is the one, then it takes data section from the
received data frame into the buffer in order,
4) The node judges whether the total number of
the data frame reaches. if it does, it shows that the
virtual data frame has been all received completely,
the node can pass the payload to the upper network
layer. Otherwise, it goes to step 2) and continues to
wait for receiving a new sub-data frame.
HM-VMPC employs virtual frame mechanism
for performance improvement. This kind of virtual
frame mechanism is compatible with long message
division mechanism of S-MAC protocol, as long as
sub-data-frame of virtual frame is defined as the short
message length of S-MAC, and at the same time, the
virtual frame length itself is defined as the long
message length of S-MAC. But the design concept of
frame treatment from HM-VMPC and S-MAC
protocols is different, and the virtual frame

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mechanism in HM-VMPC is much more suitable for

network transmission with large traffic.
Virtual frame mechanism in HM-VMPC can
reduce packet collision, increase network throughout,
shorten the time delay and so on.
2.2.4 Multi-channel virtual carrier sensing
technique
A multi-channel virtual carrier sensing
mechanism is designed to estimate idle or busy
channels effectively. HM-VMPC protocol design
takes CSMA/CS method as basic channel
competition mechanism, but HM-VMPC protocol
uses a list of Idle and Busy Channel(IBC), a list of
Network Assignment Vectors (NAVs) and a timer to
replace NAV of the single channel protocol, because
the protocol is used for network nodes of
multi-channel, it should assign a NAV for each data
channel of the node to record their idle-busy state.
HM-VMPC protocol adopts an IBC list, NAVs
list and a timer to replace the NAV in single-channel
protocol. Because the protocol is for multi-channel
mechanism, it should assign a NAV about idle and
busy state for each channel of nodes. The basic
principle is as following.
When a sensing cycle starts, NAVs and IBC lists
are initialized. That is the physical verification of the
data channel. If the channel will be idle, the
corresponding bit in the list is set to 1, if the channel
is busy, let the corresponding bit be 0. Each bit in the
IBC list is correspondent to an element in NAVs.
When the node receives the CTS and RES from
adjacent nodes, it will amend the NAV correspondent
to the reservation channel in NAV list, and based on
time interval set by the timer, non-0 in the NAV
value is constantly revised in the list of NAV. Value
0 stands for a idle channel. If the node hopes to send
or receive data, the NAVs list is checked to determine
whether a channel is idle.

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1

T2

T3

Receiver

i-1th
level

Transmitter

i-th level

T1

SYNC-ACK T2,T3 T4

SYNC-REQ T1

Figure 2.2: Time synchronization timing

This process is shown in Fig.2.1. BSL denotes
retreat time, interval between short frames(SIFS),
interval between long frames(LIFS) respectively.
2.2.5 Synchronization mechanism
HM-VMPC protocol takes some thoughts from
TPSN to synchronize time, and makes improvement
to obtain concision and efficiency. Improved TPSN
saves much more network resources, and does not
affect synchronal results, which is described as
following.
The root node first broadcasts synchronization
request frame TSR, and after the neighbor node
receives the TSR of the root node, sets the its own
level as 1, records the sequence number of the root
node. They wait for a period of stochastic time
separately, exchange synchronization information
with the root node. After the 2nd level node senses
exchange information of the first level node, adds 1
to its own level value in the TSR frame, records the
source ID in the TSR frame as its upper node number,
withdraws and waits for a random time, requests
again to implement the time synchronism with the
first level node. Likewise, after the i-th level node
sends out the request synchronization frame, its lower
level node records the ID in TSR frame, sets its own
level as i+1, withdraws and waits for a random time,
so it can guarantee the higher level node complete the
time synchronization, then requests again to carry on
the synchronization with the i-th level node. Finally
all the nodes synchronize with source node. In
synchronization process, if the node receives many
synchronized request frames, it should choose the
smallest level node as its own higher level node.
The packet of HM-VMPC adds level-established
information based on original synchronized request
frame in TPSN, so the packet itself has level
information when requested synchronization is
transmitted to higher layers. Two stages in TPSN are
merged to one, and then this mechanism reduces
protocol complexity, improves the entire network
synchronization speed, saves energy and network

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system resources.
The time difference between transmitter and
receiver is computed in following:
Let 1 denote transmission delay of synchronized
request frame. Let 2 denote transmission delay of
synchronized response frame. T1, T2, T3, T4 are local
time of request frame at the transmitter, local time of
receiving request by receiver, local time of response
at the receiver, local time of response receiving by
the transmitter respectively.
From reference[21]:

(T - T1 ) - (T4 - T3 )

= 2
2

= (T2 - T1 ) + (T4 - T3 )

(2.1)

Here the value of and =1+ 2is only relevant

to T2 T1andT4 T3, and there is no direct
relationship with time of processing and response of
receiver node, so it is very suitable for the wireless
sensor network with unstable performance.
Transmitter can compute time difference with
upper level node according to T 1, T2, T3, T4, and
adjust the local clock and make itself with upper level
node synchronous.
2.2.6 Mechanism of the power control
All
the
handshake
control
frames
RTS/CTS/RESare transmitted with the biggest
power level in HM-VMPC. After the node receives

r and the
RTS, according to receiving power
current total noise power pnoise of the receiver node,
The sending level PLev of sending node used as
current data communication is computed through the
intelligence power control processing, and this
information is informed to the transmitter node
through CTS frame. The node sending information
receives a CTS frame, analyzes a power level P lev and
adjusts the transmitting power to send out a data

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frame. If this time fails to send out the data frame,
transmitter node will adopt higher transmitting power
level to carry on again until the transmitter sends
packets successfully.
Receiver node computes the transmitting power
level P Lev as following:
Supposed that the sensor nodes all have same
transmitting power and level, maximum and

pt ,max

minimum transmitting power are

pt ,min

respectively. From reference[22] ,

and

pt ,max

and

pr satisfy the following relationship:

implements the clock synchronization at the

dormancy time interval. If the entire network clock
synchronization is not finished in a dormancy period,
it may continue in the next action period. The period
value of clock synchronization relies on the timer
precision of node hardware.
The node joining latest will continue to maintain
the active sensing condition in order to maintain
synchronization with the network as soon as possible,
Once the node finds any active node though sensing,
it transmits the request of synchronization, completes
the network time synchronism, and enters the active
dormancy period.
3

pr = pt ,max .
gt .g r
4 d
n

2.2

Among them , is the wavelength of carrier

wave, d is the distance of receiver A and transmitter
B, n is a path loss coefficient, and gt, gr are antenna
gain of the transmitter and receiver respectively.
Under the normal condition, gt and gr are
constant and n value is between 2 and 4.
After receiver node A receives a RTS, according
to the background total power p noise, receiving

The implement of HM-VMPC protocol

3.1 The implement platform of hardware

The hardware of network nodes is SARD board
provided by Freescale Company, which can be used
to implement the design of the wireless multi-hop
sensor network compatible with IEEE 802.15.4
standards.
The SARD is the platform solution of Zigbee-ready
from Freescale Company. Figure 3.1 shows the main
components of SARD.
ON/OFF

Buttons

Programming Port

s ,n
sensitive level and the limiter
of receiver
Signal-to-Noise(SNR), this mechanism can compute

LED

a for correct
the minimum power of signal
receiving information by node A, then node B should
adopt the minimum transmitting power pb which
satisfies:

MCU
RS232

MC13192

Antenna

DC IN

pa = pb .
gt .g r
4 d
n

2.3
Transformer

Although, two parameters n and d are unknown,

they can be regarded as constants in the very short
time intervals. Further pb can be expressed as:

p
b

pt ,max

min max

,
pr

t ,min

Sensor

Figure 3.1: SARD Board

Application

p
t ,max

HM-VMPC

2.4

Initialization/

Simple MAC

Layer

Configration
Phisical Layer

Then, the node A searches minimum transmitting

power level PLev to satisfy formula(2.4) in the power
level list, and fill the power control information field
within CTS frame, further transmits the CTS to the
node B.

Hardware Configration
File

Hardware Drivers

Hardware

2.2.7 Periodic dormancy

As continuous sensing is an important factor
affecting energy consumption for sensor networks. In
order to not let the clock synchronization increase the
extra network burden, HM-VMPC protocol

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Figure 3.2: Architectures of simple MAC and

HM-VMPC

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SYNC start

Send TSR
Y
Send TSR by
CSMAset Timer

Avoid collision for

a while

Start listening
channel

Set local level,

record upper node
ID

A frame
detected

Y
Need to modify ID
of upper node?

Is TSR

Is local
TSA
Y
Get time
difference,
sync with upper
node

Target ID is
Local ID?
Y Send

TSA
N

N
End
Y
End

Figure 3.3: Flow chart of synchronization mechanism

Several nodes can constitute various types of
network such as star network and mesh network
through different network protocols.

Control flow is implemented like the time

synchronization mechanism in HM-VMPC taken as
an example represented by fig.3.3.

3.2 The software development implementation

The HM-VMPC development platform of the
software is the Development Studio of the Freescale
CodeWarrior 5.7.0.
SARD itself has a simple MAC protocol stack,
and the layer relationship with HM-VMPC is shown
in figure 3.2 .The simple MAC layer provides some
interfaces for the HM-VMPC.

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Experimental design and result analysis

Fig 4.1 stands for the experiment environment.

In fig.4.1, the sensor network node is
encapsulated in order to be deployed. The battery is
outside of the box for replacing easily.

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Single to Multiple Channel

Competition
Packets loss
rate(/1000)

60
40

Single Channel CSMA

20

HM-VMPC Protocol

0
20 40 60 80 100 120
Frame Length(Bytes)
Figure 4.1: experiment environment of multi-hop
sensor networks

Figure 4.2: Single to multiple channel competition

4.1 Experiment of channel competition

The collision of HM-VMPC data packet is
analyzed through packet loss rate comparison of
HM-VMPC protocol with CSMA protocol under one
to multi-node communication.
Let three nodes send data frame to one master
node at the same time. Every node uses the same
biggest transmitting power of 3.6dBm, and the
distance between nodes and the master node is 5
meters. The time-gap of inter-frame is a random
number which is not more than 2000 millisecond.
The frame size is taken as 20B, 40B, 60B, 80B,
100B, 120B respectively for 6 group tests, and each
group test lasts for 1000 seconds, and the packet loss
rate is recorded.
In figure 4.2, when the MAC frame length is
short, the packet loss rate of the non-handshake
single channel CSMA protocol is lower than that of
HM-VMPC protocol. This is because when the frame
size is short, the network traffic is small, and the
probability that the data frame collision is small.
Although HM-VMPC protocol is multi-channel, but
three-times handshake control packet transmitting on
the control channel exists more collision.
But along with MAC frame size increases, the
increasing trend of the packet loss rate of the simple
CSMA network is faster than that of HM-VMPC
protocol. This is because along with the increase of
MAC frame, the entire network traffic increases, and

the probability of collision of frames in simple

CSMA transmission channel is also increasing, which
causes the packet loss rate rising. However,
HM-VMPC protocol is multi-channel, and there is no
collision on data channels, only the frame collision
on the control channel causes packet loss. Therefore,
the trend of HM-VMPC packet loss rate changing
with frame size is not obvious. Its packet loss rate
increases mainly due to the slow response speed of
master node caused by the network traffic increase.

pc

pc

Figure 4.3: Topology of receiving exposed problem

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4.2 Exposed terminal experiment

The exposed terminal problem solved by
HM-VMPC protocol is analyzed through loss rate
comparison test of HM-VMPC with single channel
IEEE 802.11 under exposed terminal environment.
Let the master node as the exposed transmitting
terminal and the exposed receiving terminal
respectively. Sending nodes in the network use the
same transmitting power of 3.6dbm, and the time-gap
of inter-frame is a random number which is not more
than 1500 millisecond. Figure 4.3 and the Figure 4.4
stand for the network topology of the exposed
terminal experiment. Here 0 stands for the master
node, pc stands for a personal computer.
The frame size is taken as 20B, 40B, 60B, 80B,
100B, 120B respectively for 6 group tests, and each
group test counts 1000 data packets, and the test
results are in figure 4.5 and figure 4.6.

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Figure 4.4: Topology of sending exposed problem

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Packets loss
rate(/1000)

Packets loss rate when

Receiver exposed
50
40
30
20
10
0

pc

802.11
HM-VMPC

20

40 60 80 100 120
Data length(Bytes)

Figure 4.5: Packets loss rate when receiver exposed

Figure 4.7: Topology of receiver hidden

35
Packet loss rate(/1000)

Packets loss
rate(/1000)

packet loss rate of hidden receiving terminal

Packets Loss Rate of

Transmitter exposed
40
802.11
HM-VMPC

30
20
10
0

30
25
20
15
10

802.11

HM-VMPC

0
20

20 40 60 80 100 120

40

60

80

100

120

MAC frame length(Bytes)

MAC frame length(Bytes)

Figure 4.6: Packets loss rate when transmitter

exposed
Multi-channel MAC protocol-HM-VMPC is
much better than the single channel protocol-IEEE
802.11 in the solution for exposed receiving terminal
problem. As the network payload increases, the
packet loss rate of single channel protocol increases
quickly, while that of HM-VMPC increases slowly.
This is because when the network payload increases,
the data amount transmitted on single channel grows
sharply, so the channel becomes quite jam. Therefore,
probability of data frame collision increases, and this
leads to the loss rate increasing obviously.
HM-VMPC employs multi-channel scheme, the data
and control information is transmitted separately, and
more than one data channel may transmit data at the
same time, therefore it is not very obvious to MAC
payload
affecting
multi-channel
HM-VMPC
protocol.
From Fig. 4.6, when the node is under the
exposed terminal condition, the packet loss rate of
single channel IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol with the
handshake mechanism is still high, and changes
obviously with the network payload. But the packet
loss rate of multi-channel HM-VMPC is lower than
that of IEEE 802.11, and has no obvious change with
the network payload. This result shows the advantage
of the multi-channel HM-VMPC protocol in solving

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Figure 4.8: Packet loss rate of hidden receiving

Terminal
exposed terminal problem.
4.3 Experiment of hidden receiving terminal
Let the master node as the hidden receiving
terminal, Sending nodes in the network use the same
transmitting power of 3.6dbm, and the time-gap of
inter-frame is a random number which is not more
than 1500 millisecond. Figure 4.7 stands for the
network topology of the hidden terminal experiment.
The frame size is taken as 20B, 40B, 60B, 80B,
100B, 120B respectively for 6 group tests, and each
group test counts 1000 data packets, and the test
results are in Figure 4.8.
From the figure 4.8, multi-channel HM-VMPC
has some advantage to solve the hidden terminal
problem. Under the condition of multi-channel, the
hidden receiver terminal can shake hands when the
surrounding nodes transmit the data. Compared with
other protocols, this operation mode can avoid the
collision between data frames and control frames
when handshake mechanism works. Thus the packet
loss rate is reduced effectively. But, it is possible that
the collision on the control channel between the
frames of the HM-VMPC can happen, so there is still
some packet loss.

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Ubiquitous Computing and Communication Journal

T ransmission power level wit h

int elligent power cont rol

Packet loss rate with power control on MAC

layer
With
power
control

16

50
45
12

Packet loss rate(/1000)

Transmission power
level

14

10

With
power
control
Without
power
control

8
6
4

40

Without
power
control

35
30
25
20
15
10
5

0
0

10

15

20

25

30

Transmission range(/m)

10

15

20

25

30

Transmission range(/m)

Figure 4.9: Effectiveness of intelligent power

control
4.4 Power control experiment
By the measurement of the transmitting power
levels of nodes embedded HM-VMPC protocol with
power
control
mechanism
under
different
communication distance, and the comparison of
packet loss rate under the same distance with and
without power control mechanism, the effectiveness
of the power control in HM-VMPC is verified.
Nodes transmit data frames to the master node in
the different distance, the length of MAC frame is
125B, the interval time to send frame is 500
milliseconds (to ensure same number packets in the
same time), the transmission distance has 7 groups
which are 0,5,10,15,20,25 and 30 meters respectively,
each group test lasts 600 seconds. The average
transmitting power levels of each experiment are
computed, and the packet loss rate in HM-VMPC
with and without power control is compared. Nodes
without power control transmit data frames with
maximum power level.
Figure 4.9 shows the average transmitting power
level of intelligent power control nodes in different
communication distance. When the distance increases,
the transmitting power increases, but the relationship
of transmitting power level and communication
distance is not linear. In half position of the
maximum distance (about 15 meters, the normal
communication distance of the SARD nodes is about
30 meters) does not change significantly. Clearly,
intelligent power control mechanism can choose the
right transmitting power level based on the distance.
From Figure 4.10, in various communication
distances, HM-VMPC has almost the same packet
loss after having intelligent power control. This
shows that saving energy with power control does not
bring the decline of network performance.
5

Figure 4.10: Rule of packet loss rate change

performance of the MAC protocol. It avoids collision

by the improvement method from CSMA/CA
(Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Avoidance), and the assistance with three handshake
mechanism of RTS/CTS/RES, and also modifies
periodic dormant monitoring mechanism of S-MAC
protocol. By improving the time synchronization
mechanism from TPSN, nodes achieve absolute time
synchronization. Besides, it also introduces
reservation, dynamic channel allocation as well as an
intelligent power control technique according to the
distance between the nodes is to adjust transmission
power dynamically.
The collision of HM-VMPC is tested through
packet loss rate comparison of HM-VMPC protocol
with CSMA protocol under one to multi-node
communication.
The exposed and hidden terminal problem solved
by HM-VMPC protocol is analyzed through loss rate
comparison test of HM-VMPC with single channel
IEEE 802.11.
By the measurement of the transmitting power
levels of nodes under different communication
distance, and the comparison of packet loss rate with
and without power control mechanism, the
effectiveness of the power control in HM-VMPC is
tested.
A large number of experiment show that
HM-VMPC is suitable to solve exposed and hidden
terminal problem, and effectively reduce the energy
consumption through the power control.
Acknowledgment
The work in this paper is supported by the
National Natural Fund of China under contract
(60472060, 60473039), 863 High Technology Plan of
China (2006AA01Z119).

Conclusion

In this paper, HM-VMPC protocol employs

many effective mechanisms to improve the

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