Collision-Free Operation in Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

In some wireless ad-hoc networks it is not possible to rely on carrier-sense mechanisms to prevent collisions. In this article we suggest a MAC protocol that reaches collision-free operation in sparse ad-hoc wireless networks when all the stations are saturated. The basic idea is to use a random backoff after failed transmissions and a deterministic back-off after successful transmissions. Each of the participating stations can configure its own backoff parameter after collecting information from its neighborhood. Then the system enters in a transient-state until collision-free operation is reached. We assess the duration of the transient-state and other performance metrics for an example scenario and finally we discuss two options to incorporate reception acknowledgements.