Abstract:Collision rate increases significantly with the appearance of hidden nodes in multi-hop wireless network, which results in unsuccessful transmissions and leads to performance degradation of the network. The RTS/CTS handshakes of 802.11DCF can not eliminate hidden nodes, and the situation becomes worse when the nodes are equipped with higher speed wireless devices, which require higher signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) for successful reception. This paper analyzes the prevalence of hidden nodes in multi-hop wireless network and proposes an MAC protocol named double channel collision free media access protocol—DCCFMA to solve the hidden nodes problem. DCCFMA is a dual channel MAC (media access control) protocol, receiver adjusts the transmitting power of the control channel according to the signal power received from the transmitter so as to cover all hidden nodes around the receiver. Simulation results show that DCCFMA solves hidden nodes problem better than RTS/CTS (ready-to-send/clear-to-send) handshakes and achieves 24% additional network throughput as compared to that of 802.11 DCF.