Abstract:

Considering the throughput reduction caused by the packet collision of the PRP MAC, a novel MAC based on five phase reservation (FPR-PRP MAC) is proposed. The FPR-PRP MAC adopts a synchronous time structure, and it allows the nodes in the network to acquire transmission slot numbers through five phase reservation. Then in information slots, some nodes can transmit RTS packets with higher priority according to the reservation results, and other nodes contend with each other to transmit RTS packets. A receiving node determines the maximum allowable number of data streams according to all the RTS packets it has received, and put this number in the CTS packet to reply to the transmitter. The mechanism of combining reservation with contention in FPR-PRP MAC reduces the collisions of RTS packets in the network. Moreover, the synchronous time structure in FPR-PRP MAC eliminates the collisions of the control packet with the data packet. Therefore, the proposed FPR-PRP MAC can improve the performance of the network effectively. Simulation results show that, in a heavy load situation, compared with the PRP MAC, the FPR-PRP MAC can transmit many more packets in a stream-controlled way, and increase the network throughput.

Key words: MIMO, ad hoc networks, MAC protocol