Distributed maintenance of resource reservation paths in multihop 802.11 networks

Supporting applications with high quality-of-service requirements in wireless multihop networks is challenging, mainly due to uncertainties about the packet forwarding times introduced by the data link layer at every node on the path to the destination. For instance, networks based on IEEE 802.11 exhibit such variable forwarding times due to their CSMA (carrier sense multiple access) mechanism. Previously, we designed a fully distributed reservation protocol that introduces time slots into this CSMA mechanism. We now analyze the performance of our protocol in scenarios where nodes randomly switch on and off. We show, by simulation, that our protocol achieves a lower average and less variable end-to-end delay.