DPAP: a dynamic polling based access protocol for wireless networks

In this paper, we propose a dynamic polling-based multiple access protocol for wireless networks. The time of the radio channel between the user terminals and the network base station is divided into a sequence of fixed length frames. Each frame is subdivided into a variable length registration cycle and an information cycle. For active user identification in the registration cycle, an adaptive polling scheme, requiring a small bandwidth and a little centralized control from the base station is suggested. Packet transmission by active users in the information cycle is then achieved through a modified conventional polling scheme. Performance results of the protocol for integrated traffic show that a large number of active users can be multiplexed on the wireless channel keeping in the voice packet loss probability within acceptable limits. Comparing the proposed protocol to similar protocols in the literatures, such as PRMA and RAMA, the comparison has demonstrated that the proposed protocol is superior in the sense that it does not introduce any significant fixed reservation overhead. In addition, it is more suited to the dynamic behavior of integrated traffic.