A comparison study of omnidirectional and directional MAC protocols for ad hoc networks

Traditional MAC protocols used in ad hoc networks employ omnidirectional antennas. Recently, directional antennas have emerged as an alternative due to their capability of spatial reuse, low probability of detection, robustness to jamming, and other beneficial features. In this paper, we conducted a comparison study of existing directional and omnidirectional MAC protocols by contrasting their features and evaluating their performance under various network load and topology. Specifically we presented rationale for the better performance of some directional antenna based MAC protocols by using the metric of effective spatial reuse, which is also evidenced by the simulation study.