Study On MAC Protocols Of Ad Hoc Networks With MIMO Links

Ad hoc network is a wireless system without predefined infrastructure, which composed of mobile nodes. Because ad hoc network is very flexible, it has attracted a great deal of attention in various applications such as battlefield and rescue. Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology, which has emerged as one of the most promising technology in the next generation of mobile communication has been widely used in ad hoc networks. MIMO technology has been extensively studied, but its advantage can be strengthened only through rational designing of high-level, such as the MAC layer. The research of the MAC in MIMO-based ad hoc networks has received more and more attention recently.Starting from the intensely active area of research in ad hoc network, the MAC protocols based on MIMO technology is studied in this thesis. The basic knowledge of ad hoc network and MIMO technology is introduced in this thesis firstly. After classified the current MAC protocols of ad hoc network, a survey of MAC protocols for ad hoc network with MIMO links is presented. As presented most of the existing protocols either can support broadcast service or are topology-dependent, MIMO-TIB protocol which is topology-independent and supports broadcast in ad hoc networks with MIMO links is proposed.Moreover, this thesis has analyzed the defect of PRP-MAC and proposed an Improved Parallel RTS Processing MAC (IPRP-MAC) protocol which can avoid collisions and maximize the number of transmitted data streams. The simulation results verify that IPRP-MAC can not only enhance the capacity of the network, but also decrease the control overhead.