ARM: an Asynchronous Receiver-initiated Multi-channel MAC Protocol with Duty Cycling for WSNs

This paper proposes ARM, an receiver-initiated MAC protocol with duty cycling to tackle control channel saturation, triple hidden terminal and low broadcast reliability problems in asynchronous multi-channel WSNs. By adopting a receiver-initiated transmission scheme and probability-based random channel selection, ARM effectively solves control channel saturation and triple hidden terminal problems. Further, ARM employs a receiver-adjusted broadcast scheme to guarantee broadcast reliability for broadcast-intensive applications. Via the theoretical analysis, two factors that assist ARM to handle these problems are derived. The simulation and real testbed experimental results show that via solving these three problems ARM achieves significant improvement in energy efficiency and throughput. Moreover, ARM exhibits a prominent ability to enhance its broadcast reliability.