A neighbor discovery protocol for directional antenna networks

We present a novel neighbor discovery protocol based on synchronized search that uses in-band signal. The transmission power is carefully controlled during the neighbor discovery process to minimize the unnecessary high transmission power exposure time, allowing for a better low probability of detection (LPD) performance. The underlying MAC protocol is TDMA and configurable control slots are used for the neighbor discovery process. The protocol allows us to easily control the trade-off between network entry time and channel overhead. When compared with existing directional protocols, our protocol exhibits many unique features such as LPD, low channel overhead and convergence lime gradually increasing with distance. We then analyze the protocol via a simplified theoretical model. Finally, we implement the protocol in simulation and evaluate its performance against the theoretical results. Our analysis shows that the proposed approach is an effective neighbor discovery protocol for closer neighbors, while providing reasonable network entry times for distant nodes. We also present various solutions to reduce the network entry time for these distant nodes.