An Efficient Packet Sensing MAC Protocol for Wireless Networks

The Group Allocation Multiple Access with Packet-Sensing (GAMA-PS) protocol for scheduling real-time and datagram traffic in a wireless LAN is specified and analyzed. By maintaining a dynamically-sized cycle that changes in length depending on the amount of network traffic, GAMA-PS is able to efficiently control channel access while ensuring that there are no collisions of data packets. Each cycle contains a contention period and a group-transmission period; a station with data to send competes for membership in the “transmission group” by using packet sensing to successfully complete an RTS/CTS message exchange during the contention period. Once a station is a member of the transmission group, it is able to transmit a collision-free data packet during each cycle; as long as a station has data to send, it maintains its position in the group.