Performance evaluation of a cooperative MAC protocol at ad hoc networks

Many researches have been done to enhance system performance of ad hoc networks up to now, one of which is cooperative communications. In this paper, a cooperative MAC protocol called CO-MAC is proposed and its performance is evaluated with simulation and analysis. System throughput and average access delay are used as performance measures. Numerical results show that this scheme provides more enhanced system throughput and lower average access delay than DCF scheme, which is the key protocol in IEEE 802.11 standard, and rDCF scheme, especially when frame transmission error probability is high.