MAC Protocols for
Ad-Hoc Wireless Networks
▪ Introduction
▪ Issues
▪ Design Goals
▪ Classifications
▪ Contention-based Protocols
▪ Contention-based Protocols
with reservation mechanisms
▪ Contention-based Protocols
without Scheduling mechanisms
▪ MAC Protocols that use
directional antennas
▪ Other MAC Protocols
 Medium Access Control
❑ Wireless channel is a shared medium
❑ MAC coordinates transmission between
users sharing the spectrum
❑ Goals: prevent collisions while maximizing
throughput and minimizing delay
❑ Types:
❑Centralized
❑Decentralized
 MAC Protocols: a taxonomy

Three broad classes:

❑ Channel Partitioning
❑ divide channel into smaller “pieces” (time slots,
frequency)
❑ allocate piece to node for exclusive use
❑ Random Access
❑ allow collisions
❑ “recover” from collisions
❑ “Taking turns”
❑ tightly coordinate shared access to avoid
collisions
 Principal Options and Difficulties
❑ Medium access in wireless networks is difficult mainly
because of
❑ Impossible (or very difficult) to send and to receive at
the same time
❑ Interference situation at receiver is what counts for
transmission success, but can be very different to what
sender can observe
❑ High error rates (for signaling packets) compound the
issues
❑ Requirements
❑ As usual: high throughput, low overhead, low error
rates, …
❑ Additionally: energy-efficient, handle switched off
devices
 Issues
The main issues need to be addressed while designing a MAC protocol for
ad hoc wireless networks:
❑Bandwidth efficiency is defined at the ratio of
the bandwidth used for actual data transmission
to the total available bandwidth. The MAC
protocol for ad-hoc networks should maximize it.
❑Quality of service support is essential for time-
critical applications. The MAC protocol for ad-hoc
networks should consider the constraint of ad-hoc
networks.
❑Synchronization can be achieved by exchange
of control packets.
 Issues
The main issues need to be addressed while designing a MAC protocol for
ad hoc wireless networks:
❑Hidden and exposed terminal problems:
❖ Hidden nodes:
– Hidden stations: Carrier sensing may fail to detect another station
– Fading: The strength of radio signals diminished rapidly with the distance from the
transmitter
❖ Exposed nodes:
– Exposed stations
– Collision masking The local signal might drown out the remote transmission.

❑Error-Prone Shared Broadcast Channel

❑Distributed Nature/Lack of Central
Coordination
❑Mobility of Nodes: Nodes are mobile most of the
time.
❑ Hidden Terminal Problem
Two nodes, out of each others’ radio range; simultaneously try to transmit
data to an intermediate node, which is in radio range of both the sending
nodes.
None of the sending nodes will be aware of the other node’s
transmission, causing a collision to occur at the intermediate node.

Receiver Sender
Sender
❑ Exposed node problem
When a node overhears another transmission and hence refrains to
transmit any data of its own, even though such a transmission would not
cause a collision due to the limited radio range of the nodes.

Data
Y X S D
 Design Issues

❑ Distributed nature/lack of central coordination

❑ Nodes must be scheduled in a distributed fashion
❑ Exchange of control information
→ control packets must not consume too much of network bandwidth

❑ Mobility of nodes
❑ Very important factor affecting the performance (throughput) of the
protocol
❑ Bandwidth reservations or control information exchanged may end up
being of no use if the node mobility is very high
❑ Protocol design must take this mobility factor into consideration
→ system performance should not significantly affected due to node
mobility
 Design goals of a MAC Protocol

❑ The operation of the protocol should be distributed.

❑ The protocol should provide QoS support for real-time
traffic.
❑ The access delay, which refers to the average delay
experienced by any packet to get transmitted, must be
kept low.
❑ The available bandwidth must be utilized efficiently.
❑ The protocol should ensure fair allocation of bandwidth to
nodes.
❑ Control overhead must be kept as low as possible.
 Design goals of a MAC
Protocol

❑ The protocol should minimize the effects of hidden and

exposed terminal problems.
❑ The protocol must be scalable to large networks.
❑ It should have power control mechanisms.
❑ The protocol should have mechanisms for adaptive data
rate control.
❑ It should try to use directional antennas.
❑ The protocol should provide synchronization among
nodes
 Classifications of MAC protocols
❑ Ad hoc network MAC protocols can be classified into three types:
❑ Contention-based protocols
❑ Contention-based protocols with reservation mechanisms
❑ Contention-based protocols with scheduling mechanisms
❑ Other MAC protocols
MAC Protocols for Ad Hoc
Wireless Networks

Contention-based Contention-based Other MAC

Contention-Based
protocols with protocols with Protocols
Protocols
reservation mechanisms scheduling mechanisms
Directional
RI-BTMA
Antennas
Sender-Initiated Receiver-Initiated Synchronous Asynchronous MACA-BI
MMAC
Protocols Protocols Protocols Protocols MARCH
MCSMA
RI-BTMA D-PRMA MACA/PR
PCM
Single-Channel Multichannel MACA-BI CATA RTMAC
MARCH RBAR
Protocols Protocols HRMA
SRMA/PA
MACAW BTMA
FAMA DBTMA FPRP
ICSMA
 Classification of MAC Protocols(1)
❑ Contention-based protocols
❑ No a priori resource reservation
❑ Whenever a packet should be transmitted, the node contends with its
neighbors for access to the shared channel
❑ Cannot provide QoS guarantees

❑ Sender-initiated protocols – packet transmissions are initiated by the

sender node
❖ Single-channel sender-initiated protocols – the total bandwidth is used

as it is, without being divided

❖ Multi-channel sender-initiated protocols – available bandwidth is
divided into multiple channels; this enabled several nodes to
simultaneously transmit data

❑ Receiver-initiated protocols – the receiver node initiates the contention

resolution protocol
 Classification of MAC Protocols(2)

❑ Contention-based protocols with reservation

mechanisms
❑ Support for real-time traffic using QoS guarantees
❑ Using mechanisms for reserving bandwidth a priori

❑ Synchronous protocols – require time synchronization

among all nodes in the network → global time
synchronization is generally difficult to achieve

❑ Asynchronous protocols – do not require any global

time synchronization, usually rely on relative time
information for effecting reservations
 Classifications of MAC Protocols(3)

❑ Contention-based protocols with scheduling mechanisms

❑Node scheduling is done in a manner so that all
nodes are treated fairly and no node is starved of
bandwidth.
❑Scheduling-based schemes are also used for
enforcing priorities among flows whose packets
are queued at nodes.
❑Some scheduling schemes also consider battery
characteristics.
❑ Other
protocols are those MAC protocols that do not strictly fall under the
above categories
 Reliability

❑Wireless links are prone to errors.

High packet loss rate detrimental
to transport-layer performance.
❑Mechanisms needed to reduce
packet loss rate experienced by
upper layers
 Simple Solution to Improve Reliability

❑ When node B receives a data packet from

node A, node B sends an
Acknowledgement (Ack). This approach
adopted in many protocols.
❑ If node A fails to receive an Ack, it will
retransmit the packet.

A B C
Contention-based protocols

❑ MACAW: A Media Access Protocol for Wireless LANs is based on MACA

(Multiple Access Collision Avoidance) Protocol
❑ MACA
❑ When a node wants to transmit a data packet, it first transmit a RTS
(Request To Send) frame.
❑ The receiver node, on receiving the RTS packet, if it is ready to
receive the data packet, transmits a CTS (Clear to Send) packet.
❑ Once the sender receives the CTS packet without any error, it starts
transmitting the data packet.
❑ If a packet transmitted by a node is lost, the node uses the binary
exponential back-off (BEB) algorithm to back off a random interval of
time before retrying.
❑ The binary exponential back-off mechanism used in MACA might starves
flows sometimes. The problem is solved by MACAW.
MACA: A New Channel Access
Method for Packet Radio
Phil Karn 1990
Goals , New Ideas, and Main Contributions
❑ Goals:
➢Try to overcome hidden & exposed terminal
problems
❑ New idea:
➢Reserve the channel before sending data packet
➢Minimize the cost of collision (control packet is
much smaller than data packet)
❑ Main Contribution:
➢A three-way handshake MAC protocol : MACA
CSMA/CA MA/CA MACA

21
Fundamental Assumptions
❑ Symmetry

❑A can hear from B  B can hear from A

❑ No capture
❑ No channel fading
❑ Packet error only due to collision
❑ Data packets and control packets are transmitted in the same channel

22
 Three-Way Handshake
❑ A sends Ready-to-Send (RTS)
❑ B responds with Clear-to-Send (CTS)
❑ A sends DATA PACKET
❑ RTS and CTS announce the duration of the data transfer
❑ Nodes overhearing RTS keep quiet for some time to allow A to receive CTS
❑ Nodes overhearing CTS keep quiet for some time to allow B to receive data
packet
CTS (10)

CTS: Request
RTS: Clear ToTo
Send
Send DATA
RTS (10)

A
C
E
23
More Details for MACA

❑ A sends out RTS and set a timer and waits for CTS
❑ If A receives CTS before timer go to zero, OK! sends data packet
❑ Otherwise, A assumes there is a collision at B
Double the backoff counter interval
» Randomly pick up a timer from [1,backoff counter]
Send next RTS after timer go to zero
❑ B sends out CTS, then set a timer and waits for data packet
❑ If data packet arrives before timer go to zero, OK!
❑ Otherwise, B can do other things
❑ C overhears A’s RTS, set a timer which is long enough to allow A to receive
CTS. After the timer goes to zero, C can do other things
❑ D overhears B’s CTS, set a timer which is long enough to allow B to receive
data packet.
❑ E overhears A’s RTS and B’s CTS, set a timer which is long enough to allow
B to receive data packet.
❑ RTS and CTS can also contain info to allow sender A to adjust power to
reduce interference
Note: no carrier sense
24
 Hidden Terminal Problem Still Exists (1)

Data packet still might suffer collision

CTS
DATA
RTS

B
C

25
 Hidden Terminal Problem Still Exists (2)

Data packet still might suffer collision

CTS
RTS
DATA
RTS

B
C
E
A

26
Exposed Terminal Problem Still Exists

Node C can not receive CTS

RTS
DATA
CTS

A
D C

27
 Summary
❑ MACA did not solve hidden & exposed terminal problems
❑ MACA did not provide specifications about parameters

❑ What are RTS, CTS packet sizes ?

❑ How to decide timers?
❑ What is initial backoff window size?
❑ A lot things need to do if using MACA
 Backoff Interval

❑ When transmitting a packet, choose a backoff

interval in the range [0,cw]
❑ cw is contention window
❑ Count down the backoff interval when
medium is idle
❑ Count-down is suspended if medium
becomes busy
❑ When backoff interval reaches 0, transmit
RTS
 Backoff Interval

❑ The time spent counting down backoff

intervals is a part of MAC overhead
❑ Choosing a large cw leads to large backoff
intervals and can result in larger overhead
❑ Choosing a small cw leads to a larger
number of collisions (when two nodes count
down to 0 simultaneously)
 Backoff Interval

❑ Sincethe number of nodes attempting to

transmit simultaneously may change with
time, some mechanism to manage
contention is needed

❑ IEEE 802.11 DCF: contention window cw is

chosen dynamically depending on collision
occurrence
 Binary Exponential Backoff in DCF

❑ When a node fails to receive CTS in response to

its RTS, it increases the contention window
❑ cw is doubled (up to an upper bound)
❑ When a node successfully completes a data
transfer, it restores cw to CWmin
❑ cw follows a sawtooth curve
Fairness Issues in MAC

❑ Many definitions of fairness plausible

❑ Simplest definition: All nodes should receive
equal bandwidth

A B
Two flows

C D
 Fairness Issues in MAC

❑ Assume that initially, A and B both choose a backoff

interval in range [0,31] but their RTSs collide
❑ Nodes A and B then choose from range [0,63]
❑ Node A chooses 4 slots and B choose 60 slots
❑ After A transmits a packet, it next chooses from range
[0,31]
❑ It is possible that A may transmit several packets
before B transmits its first packet

A B
Two flows

C D
Fairness Issues in MAC

❑ Unfairness occurs when one node has backed off

much more than some other node

A B
Two flows

C D
 MACAW: A Media Access
Protocol for Wireless LAN’s

V. Bharghavan, A. Demers, S. Shenker, and L. Zhang (Sigcomm 1994)

Goals, New Ideas, and Main
Contributions
◼ Goals:
❖ This paper refined and extended MACA
❑ New Idea: Information sharing to achieve fairness
❑ Main Results:
❖ Modified control messages
➢ Four-way handshake (reliable, recover at MAC layer)
➢ Five-way handshake (relieve exposed terminal problem)
➢ RRTS (unfairness)
❖ Modified back-off algorithms
➢ Multiplicative increase and linear decrease (MILD)
➢ Synchronize back-off counter using piggyback message
❖ Multiple stream model (V-MAC)

38
Revisit Hidden Terminal Problem

❑ Data packet still may suffer collision

❑ To recover packet loss at transport layer is too slow
❑ Recover at MAC layer is more fast
❑ Need ACK from destination

39
 Four-Way Handshake
❑ Sender sends Ready-to-Send (RTS)
❑ Receiver responds with Clear-to-Send (CTS)
❑ Sender sends DATA PACKET
❑ Receiver acknowledge with ACK
❑ RTS and CTS announce the duration of the transfer
❑ Nodes overhearing RTS/CTS keep quiet for that duration
❑ Sender will retransmit RTS if no ACK is received
If ACK is sent out, but not received by sender, after receiving new RTS, receiver returns ACK instead
of CTS for new RTS
ACK
CTS(T)
CTS:Request
RTS: Clear ToTo
Send
Send DATA
RTS(T)

destination

source

40
 Revisit Exposed Terminal Problem
❑ RTS/CTS/DATA/ACK can not solve exposed terminal problem
❑ When overhearing RTS, the node needs to wait longer enough to allow the
data packet being completely transmitted even it does not overhear CTS
❑ To relieve exposed terminal problem,
➢ Let exposed terminal know the DATA packet does
be transmitted
➢ Extra message DS (data send)

❑ Five Handshaking to let exposed terminal know how long it should wait

41
Five-Way Handshake
❑ Sender sends Ready-to-Send (RTS)
❑ Receiver responds with Clear-to-Send (CTS)
❑ Sender sends DATA SENDING (DS)
❑ Sender sends DATA PACKET
❑ Receiver acknowledge with ACK
❑ RTS and CTS announce the duration of the transfer
❑ Nodes overhearing RTS/CTS keep quiet for that
duration

CTS
ACK
CTS:
RTS: Clear
DS:RequestToToSend
Data Sending
Send RTS
DS
DATA

C A
Comparison with DS and without DS

CTS
ACK
DATA
RTS

P2 B2
P1

B1
Unfairness
❑ Using RTS/CTS/DATA/ACK or RTS/CTS/DS/DATA/ACK might cause unfairness
❑ A sends data to B; D sends data to C
❑ A and D have enough data to send
❑ C can hears from B and D, but not A
❑ B can hear from A and C, but not D
❑ A is in luck and gets the channel
❑ D sends RTS and times out
❑ Backoff window for D repeatedly doubles
❑ For the next transmission:
A picks a random number from a smaller window
Unequal probability of channel access
Throughput for flow A ➔B > 90 %
Throughput for flow D ➔ C ~ 0%

CTS
ACK
DATA
RTS

B C
D

A
44
Request for RTS (RRTS)

❑ Try to solve unfairness by having C do the contending for D

RRTS: Request for RTS

ACK
CTS
DATA
RTS

B
C
A D

45
Why Uses RRTS Instead Of CTS ?
❑ CTS or RTS packet size << data packet size

❑ When nodes overhear CTS, they need to defer a time period to allow the
expected data packet transmission

❑ When nodes overhear RRTS, they only need to defer a time period to
overhear the expected CTS

❑ Uses CTS will cost long waiting

46
Why Multiple Stream MAC more fair Than Single Stream
MAC
❑ When collision

❖all packets in single stream MAC are used a

large backoff window

❖Different flow’s packet in multiple stream

MAC uses different backoff window

47
 Backoff Algorithms
❑ When collision occurs, node A pick up a random number T from [1,Bo], then
retransmits RTS after T time unit

❑ How to determine Bo
❑ After each collision Bo_new = Fun_inc(Bo_old)
❑ After each successful transmission Bo_new = Fun_dec(Bo_old)

❑ Binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm

❑ Fun_inc(Bo_old)=min{2*Bo_old, Bo_max}
❑ Fun_dec(B_old)=Bo_min

❑ Multiplicative increase linear decease (MILD)

❑ Fun_inc(Bo_old)=min{1.5*Bo_old, Bo_max}
❑ Fun_dec(B_old)=max{Bo_old -1, Bo_min}
 Information Sharing in Backoff
Algorithms

❑ When a node sends a packet, it embeds its current backoff counter in the
packet header. Other nodes which overhears the packet copy the value as itself
backoff counter

❑ Key idea: all nodes have the same backoff counter to achieve fairness
Open Problems

❑ How to design a good backoff algorithm?

❑ Adaptive MAC to achieve fairness in ad-hoc networks

❑ Do upper layer operations need to tightly relate to MAC?

❑ Reliable multicast MAC in ad-hoc networks

 MACAW Protocol

1. The binary back-off mechanism used in MACA at times

lead to starvation of flows
❑ Example
❑ S1 and S2 are generating a high volume of traffic
❑ Node that first captures the channel starts transmitting packets
❑ If one node (S1) starts sending, the packets transmitted by S2 get
collided
→ S2 backs off and increases its back-off window
→ the probability of node S2 acquiring the channel keeps decreasing
 MACAW Protocol

❑ Solution
❑Packet header has an additional field
carrying the current back-off counter
value of the transmitting node
❑A node receiving this packet copies this
value into its back-off counter
❑Allocates bandwidth in a fair manner
 MACAW Protocol
2. Large variations in the back-off values
• the back-off window increases very rapidly and is reset
after each successful transmission

Solution
• multiplicative increase and linear decrease (MILD) back-
off mechanism (increase by factor 1.5)
• Upon collision back-off is increased by a multiplicative
factor 1.5
• Upon successful transmission, it is decremented by one
• Eliminates contention and hence long contention periods
after every successful transmission
• At the same time providing a reasonably quick escalation
in the back-off values when the contention is high
 MACAW Protocol
3. Fairness
•MACA: per node fairness
• MACAW: per flow fairness (one back-off
value per flow)

Solution
• Done by maintaining multiple queues at
every node,
•one each for each data stream,
•and running the back-off algorithm
independently for each queue
 MACAW Protocol
4. New control packet ACK is used
• In MACA responsibility of recovering from transmission errors lies
with the transport layer.
• In MACAW it lies with DLL

• If sender does not receive the ACK packet, it reschedules the same
data packet for transmission
• Back-ff counter is incremented if the ACK packet is not received by the
sender
• If ACK lost in transmission sender retry by transmitting RTS for the
same packet
• But now reciever send ACK packet instead of CTS and sender moves
on to transmit the next data packet
 MACAW Protocol
5. New control packet type: data-sending (DS)

• a small packet (30 Byte) containing information such as the

duration of the forthcoming data transmission is send before
actual data is send
• This info. Is used by exposed nodes for updating their info.
• An exposed node overhearing the DS packet understand that
the previous RTS-CTS exchange was successful and defers its
transmissions until the expected duration of the DATA-ACK
exchange
 MACAW Protocol
6. Another control packet RRTS (request-for-request-to-send)
 Contention-based protocols

❑ Flooracquisition Multiple Access Protocols (FAMA)

❑ Based on a channel access discipline which consists of a carrier-
sensing operation and a collision-avoidance dialog between the
sender and the intended receiver of a packet.
❑ Floor acquisition refers to the process of gaining control of the
channel. At any time only one node is assigned to use the channel.
❑ Carrier-sensing by the sender, followed by the RTS-CTS control
packet exchange, enables the protocol to perform as efficiently as
MACA.
❑ Two variations of FAMA
RTS-CTS exchange with no carrier-sensing uses the ALOHA
protocol for transmitting RTS packets.
RTS-CTS exchange with non-persistent carrier-sensing uses
non-persistent CSMA for the same purpose.
Busy Tone Multiple Access Protocols (BTMA)
❑ The transmission channel is split into two:
➢ a data channel for data packet transmissions

➢ a control channel used to transmit the busy tone

signal

❑ When a node is ready for transmission, it senses the

channel to check whether the busy tone is active.
➢ If not, it turns on the busy tone signal and starts
data transmissions
➢ Otherwise, it reschedules the packet for
transmission after some random rescheduling
delay.
➢ No node in the two-hop neighboring Tx node is
permitted from transmitting at the same time.
BTMA – Busy Tone Multiple Access

❑ The transmission channel is split into

data and control channel

❑ General behavior
❑ When a node wants to transmit a packet,
it senses the channel to check whether
the busy tone is active
❑ If not, it turns on the busy tone signal and
starts transmission

❑ Problem: very poor bandwidth utilization

 Dual Busy Tone Multiple Access Protocol (DBTMAP)

• Uses two busy tones on the control channel, BTt ,BTr

• BTt : Indicate that it is Tx on the data channel
• BTr : Turned on by a node when it is receiving data on the
data channel
• When to transmit ,senses for BTr signal is active(shows it is
currently receiving packet)
No BTr signal,Tx RTS on the control channel
• When RTS is received, node checks whether BTt tone is
active in its neighborhood
• Active BTt implies that some other node in neighborhood is
Tx packets so it cannot receive packets for the moment
• No BTt signal ,it responds with CTS & turns on BTr
• Sender node receives CTS, turn on BTt signal & starts Tx
data packets
• After completing Tx ,sender node turns off the BTt signal
Receiver-Initiated Busy Tone Multiple Access Protocol (RI-BTMA)

❑The transmission channel is split into two:

➢ a data channel for data packet transmissions

➢ a control channel used for transmitting the

busy tone signal
❑A node can transmit on the data channel only if
it finds the busy tone to be absent on the control
channel.
❑The data packet is divided into two portions: a
preamble and the actual data packet
MACA-By Invitation (MACA-BI)

❑MACA-By Invitation (MACA-BI) is a

receiver-initiated MAC protocol.
❑By eliminating the need for the RTS
packet it reduces the number of control
packets used in the MACA protocol which
uses the three-way handshake
mechanism.
❑Media Access with Reduced Handshake
(MARCH) is a receiver-initiated protocol.
Contention-based Protocols with Reservation Mechanisms

❑ Contention-based Protocols with Reservation Mechanisms

❑ Contention occurs during the resource (bandwidth) reservation
phase.
❑ Once the bandwidth is reserved, the node gets exclusive access to
the reserved bandwidth.
❑ QoS support can be provided for real-time traffic.
❑ Distributed packet reservation multiple access protocol (D-PRMA)
❑ It extends the centralized packet reservation multiple access
(PRMA) scheme into a distributed scheme that can be used in ad
hoc wireless networks.
❑ PRMA was designed in a wireless LAN with a base station.
❑ D-PRMA extends PRMA protocol in a wireless LAN.
❑ D-PRMA is a TDMA-based scheme. The channel is divided into
fixed- and equal-sized frames along the time axis.
 Contention-Based Protocols with Reservation

❑ MACA/PR – MACA with Piggy-Backed Reservation

❑ Multi-hop routing protocol based on MACAW
❑ Main components
❑ MAC protocol
❑ Reservation protocol
❑ QoS routing protocol
❑ Differentiation of real-time and best-effort packets
❑ General behavior
❑ Slotted mechanisms
❑ Maintenance of a reservation table (RT) at each node that records all the
reserved transmit and receive slots / windows of all nodes within its
transmission range
❑ Network allocation vectors (NAV) for cycles
❑ Destination sequenced distance vector (DSDV) used for routing
→ TDM-like system for real-time traffic
→ Best-effort traffic using MACAW in free slots
Access method DAMA: Reservation-TDMA

❑ Reservation Time Division Multiple Access

❑ every frame consists of N mini-slots and x data-slots
❑ every station has its own mini-slot and can reserve up to k data-slots
using this mini-slot (i.e. x = N * k).
❑ other stations can send data in unused data-slots according to a
round-robin sending scheme (best-effort traffic)

e.g. N=6, k=2

N mini-slots N * k data-slots

reservations other stations can use free data-slots

for data-slots based on a round-robin scheme
Distributed Packet Reservation Multiple Access Protocol (D-
PRMA)
❑ Implicit reservation (PRMA - Packet Reservation Multiple Access):
❑ a certain number of slots form a frame, frames are repeated
❑ stations compete for empty slots according to the slotted aloha
principle
❑ once a station reserves a slot successfully, this slot is automatically
assigned to this station in all following frames as long as the station
has data to send
❑ competition for this slots starts again as soon as the slot was empty
in the last frame

reservation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 time-slot
ACDABA-F frame1 A C D A B A F
ACDABA-F frame2 A C A B A
AC-ABAF- frame3 A B A F collision at
reservation
A---BAFD frame4 A B A F D attempts
t
ACEEBAFD frame5 A C E E B A F D
 Contention-based protocols with Reservation
Mechanisms
❑ Collision avoidance time allocation protocol (CATA)
❑ based on dynamic topology-dependent transmission scheduling
❑ Nodes contend for and reserve time slots by means of a distributed
reservation and handshake mechanism.
❑ Support broadcast, unicast, and multicast transmissions.
❑ The operation is based on two basic principles:
The receiver(s) of a flow must inform the potential source nodes
about the reserved slot on which it is currently receiving packets.
The source node must inform the potential destination node(s)
about interferences in the slot.
Usage of negative acknowledgements for reservation requests,
and control packet transmissions at the beginning of each slot,
for distributing slot reservation information to senders of
broadcast or multicast sessions.
 Contention-based protocols with Reservation
Mechanisms

❑ Hop reservation multiple access protocol (HRMA)

❑ a multichannel MAC protocol which is based on half-duplex, very
slow frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) radios
❑ uses a reservation and handshake mechanism to enable a pair of
communicating nodes to reserve a frequency hop, thereby
guaranteeing collision-free data transmission.
❑ can be viewed as a time slot reservation protocol where each time
slot is assigned a separate frequency channel.
❑ Soft reservation multiple access with priority assignment (SRMA/PA)
❑ Developed with the main objective of supporting integrated services
of real-time and non-real-time application in ad hoc networks, at the
same time maximizing the statistical multiplexing gain.
❑ Nodes use a collision-avoidance handshake mechanism and a soft
reservation mechanism.
 Contention-based protocols with Reservation
Mechanisms

❑ Five-Phase Reservation Protocol (FPRP)

❑ a single-channel time division multiple access (TDMA)-based
broadcast scheduling protocol.
❑ Nodes uses a contention mechanism in order to acquire time slots.
❑ The protocol assumes the availability of global time at all nodes.
❑ The reservation takes five phases: reservation, collision report,
reservation confirmation, reservation acknowledgement, and
packing and elimination phase.
❑ MACA with Piggy-Backed Reservation (MACA/PR)
❑ Provide real-time traffic support in multi-hop wireless networks
❑ Based on the MACAW protocol with non-persistent CSMA
❑ The main components of MACA/PR are:
A MAC protocol
A reservation protocol
A QoS routing protocol
 Contention-based protocols with Reservation
Mechanisms

❑ Real-Time Medium Access Control Protocol (RTMAC)

❑Provides a bandwidth reservation mechanism for
supporting real-time traffic in ad hoc wireless
networks
❑RTMAC has two components
A MAC layer protocol is a real-time extension of the IEEE 802.11
DCF.
– A medium-access protocol for best-effort traffic
– A reservation protocol for real-time traffic
A QoS routing protocol is responsible for end-to-end reservation
and release of bandwidth resources.
 Contention-based protocols with Scheduling
Mechanisms

❑ Protocols in this category focus on packet scheduling at the nodes and

transmission scheduling of the nodes.
❑ The factors that affects scheduling decisions
❑ Delay targets of packets
❑ Traffic load at nodes
❑ Battery power
❑ Distributed priority scheduling and medium access in Ad Hoc Networks
present two mechanisms for providing quality of service (QoS)
❑ Distributed priority scheduling (DPS) – piggy-backs the priority tag of
a node’s current and head-of-line packets o the control and data
packets
❑ Multi-hop coordination – extends the DPS scheme to carry out
scheduling over multi-hop paths.
 Contention-based protocols with Scheduling
Mechanisms

❑ Distributed Wireless Ordering Protocol (DWOP)

❑A media access scheme along with a scheduling
mechanism
❑Based on the distributed priority scheduling scheme
❑ Distributed Laxity-based Priority Scheduling (DLPS)
Scheme
❑Scheduling decisions are made based on
❑The states of neighboring nodes and feed back from
destination nodes regarding packet losses
❑Packets are recorded based on their uniform laxity
budgets (ULBs) and the packet delivery ratios of the
flows. The laxity of a packet is the time remaining before
its deadline.
MAC Protocols that use directional Antennas

❑ MAC protocols that use directional antennas have several advantages:

❑ Reduce signal interference
❑ Increase in the system throughput
❑ Improved channel reuse
❑ MAC protocol using directional antennas
❑ Make use of an RTS/CTS exchange mechanism
❑ Use directional antennas for transmitting and receiving data packets
❑ Directional Busy Tone-based MAC Protocol (DBTMA)
❑ It uses directional antennas for transmitting the RTS, CTS, data
frames, and the busy tones.
❑ Directional MAC Protocols for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks
❑ DMAC-1, a directional antenna is used for transmitting RTS packets
and omni-directional antenna for CTS packets.
❑ DMAC-1, both directional RTS and omni-directional RTS
transmission are used.
MACA/PR Protocol
MAC Protocol Using Directed Antennas

❑ Properties
❑ One receiver per node, which can transmit and receive only one packet at
any given time
❑ Each transceiver is equipped with M
directional antennas
❑ Each antenna has a conical radiation
pattern spanning an angle of 2π/M radians
❑ Basic RTS/CTS scheme (as used in MACA)
MAC Protocol Using Directed Antennas
Power-Control MAC Protocol (PCM)

❑ Properties
❑ RTS/CTS are transmitted with maximum power pmax
❑ RTS-CTS handshake to determine the required transmission power pdesired
❑ RTS is received at the receiver with a signal level pr

❑ Calculation of pdesired
❑ Rxthresh is the minimum necessary received signal strength
❑ c … constant
known in advance

pmax
pdesired = Rxthresh * c
pr

measured
Power-Control MAC Protocol

RTS/CTS
range DATA/ACK
range
pmax
pdesired
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Data
transmission

carrier sensing
range
Power-Control MAC Protocol

❑ Properties
❑ Adaptation to changing conditions, e.g. caused by mobility
❑ Instantaneous check and re-calculation of the necessary transmission power pdesired

❑ Collision avoidance
❑ Periodic bursts (after each EIFS) using pmax to notify neighbors about
ongoing transmissions
 Other MAC Protocols

❑ Multi-channel MAC Protocol (MMAC)

❑ Multiple channels for data transmission
❑ There is no dedicated control channel.
❑ Based on channel usage channels can be classified into three
types: high preference channel (HIGH), medium preference channel
(MID), low preference channel (LOW)
❑ Multi-channel CSMA MAC Protocol (MCSMA)
❑ The available bandwidth is divided into several channels
❑ Power Control MAC Protocol (PCM) for Ad Hoc Networks
❑ Allows nodes to vary their transmission power levels on a per-
packet basis
❑ Receiver-based Autorate Protocol (RBAR)
❑ Use a rate adaptation approach
❑ Interleaved Carrier-Sense Multiple Access Protocol (ICSMA)
❑ The available bandwidth is split into tow equal channels
❑ The handshaking process is interleaved between the two channels.