Traffic sensitive MAC algorithms in multihop radio networks

An exciting application of Multi-hop Packet Radio Networks (MPRNet) is to provide communication services in environments without suitable infrastructure. One key design issue in MPRNet is the formulation of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols. In this paper, the performance of two MAC protocols, Slotted ALOHA (S-ALOHA) and Spatial TDMA (S-TDMA), are investigated. In many MPRNet, the traffic load can vary considerably from link to link. We considered improving the network performance by incorporating traffic load information into the MAC protocol design. In S-ALOHA, nodes transmit at random with some specified probability q. By defining q in terms of traffic load and connectivity near optimum performance was achieved. For S-TDMA the design of transmission schedules was considered. A systematic procedure, for generating schedules, based on the connectivity is described and this procedure was enhanced considerably by utilizing traffic load information. The resulting traffic-sensitive schedules markedly improved network performance.