A Distributed Cross-layer Routing Protocol with Channel Assignment in Multi-Channel MANET

An innovative cross-layer routing approach, MCORCA (Multi-Channel On-demand Routing with Coordinate Awareness), is presented that utilizes multiple channels to improve the performance of wireless ad-hoc networks. The proposed cross-layer scheme adapts the strategy of channel assignment and the mechanism of dealing with conflicts. Channels are divided into a control channel and data channels; the control channel is used for scheduling, and data channels are used for data transmissions. MCORCA is an extension of an on-demand routing protocol for single channel wireless networks, called ORCA (On-demand Routing with Coordinates Awareness). Simulation results indicate that MCORCA yields a significant capacity improvement as well as lower end-to-end delays by using multiple channels.