A fair medium access protocol using adaptive flow-rate control through cooperative negotiation among contending flows in ad hoc wireless network with directional antenna

Abstract

Medium Access Control protocols proposed in the context of ad hoc networks primarily aim to control the medium access among contending nodes using some contention resolution schemes. However, these protocols do not necessarily guarantee a fair allocation of wireless medium among contending flows. Our objective in this paper is to adaptively adjust the flow-rates of contending flows, so that each gets fair access to the medium. This adaptive adjustment will also ensure high packet delivery ratio and optimal utilization of wireless medium. We use a deterministic approach to adaptively improve the performance of the suffered flows in the network through mutual negotiation between contending flows. In this paper we have also suggested the use of directional antenna to further reduce the contention between the flows in the wireless medium. The proposed scheme is evaluated on QualNet network simulator to demonstrate that our scheme guarantees fairness to all contending flows. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.