A multimedia MAC protocol for distributed DS mobile radio networks

This paper presents a distributed multimedia media-access control protocol that is specifically designed for half-duplex radios and direct-sequence signaling. Each radio can transmit and receive random-access data and simultaneously support several virtual-circuit connections. A reservation-based approach with active acknowledgments is used for the transmission of random-access data. Virtual-circuit data is transmitted periodically, and associated with each virtual circuit connection are periodically broadcast control packets containing channel-access information. The content of the control packets is used by other radios to avoid contention. Numerical results show that the protocol outperforms a number of related alternatives.