A Mac Protocol for Ad-Hoc Wireless Lans with Reduced Energy Consumption

This paper proposes a low power adaptive (LPA) MAC protocol for ad-hoc Wireless LANs (WLANs), which is capable of operating efficiently under bursty traffic conditions. The protocol utilizes a Learning Automaton at each node of the WLAN. Each Automaton utilizes network feedback to select the mobile station that will be granted permission to transmit. We implement a low-power option to reduce the energy consumption of the protocol in medium-to high network loads.