Fairness and Network Capacity Utilization Ratio of MAC Mechanism in Wireless Multi-hop Ad hoc Networks

It is a key issue in wireless multi-hop Ad hoc networks to develop a Media Access Control (MAC) protocol by which the contending nodes can share the wireless channel fairly and can fully utilize the network capacity. Considering the characteristics of wireless multi-hop Ad hoc networks, such as multi-hop, networks topology changing frequently, and some nodes contending the wireless channel, this paper builds the model of wireless Ad hoc networks and defines two MAC performance parameters: fairness and network capacity utilization ratio. Moreover, this paper proposes a Fair MAC (FMAC) protocol by modifying the IEEE 802.11 DCF. The simulation results prove that FMAC can make the contending nodes share the wireless channel fairly and fully utilize the network capacity.