Cross-layer MAC design for wireless networks using MIMO

We address the problems of the IEEE 802.11 MAC for wireless networks by designing a MAC protocol jointly with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique in the physical layer. We propose a new MAC protocol, mitigating interference using multiple antennas MAC (MIMA-MAC), which mitigates interference from neighboring nodes by employing the spatial multiplexing capability of MIMO. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results clearly show that the proposed MIMA-MAC system outperforms the 802.11 system in terms of the aggregate throughput of the network by mitigating interference from neighboring nodes and thereby increasing simultaneous transmissions in the network.