State-based channel selection in multi-channel wireless networks

Abstract

In this thesis, we present an innovative scheme to favor the selection of M out of N available high-performing channels in multi-channel wireless networks through the application of states to individual channels. One channel selection scheme is random selection, which can lead to poor network performance when one or more data channels are disadvantaged. This is due to the inability of random selection to discriminate between high performing and disadvantaged channels. The novel proposed channel selection scheme is shown to perform nearly as well as the highest performing of N channels when one or more channels are disadvantaged. We develop a Markov-chain-based theoretical model and then present simulation results validating a significant performance increase of the proposed channel selection scheme.