Performance modeling and analysis of distributed multi-hop wireless ad hoc networks

This paper presents an analytical model for analyzing the performance of the TDMA-based distributed reservation protocol for wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks. A novel three-way handshake process is presented which considers the hold-off and competition process before the transmission of scheduling messages. An explicit expression of expectation of the average delay of the three-way handshake process is further derived. Regarding throughput, the concepts of forwarding traffic and pseudo-collision traffic are brought up to evaluate the MAC layer effective throughput. The forwarding characteristic of multi-hop ad hoc networks is studied to calculate the forwarding traffic while the pseudo-collision traffic is derived based on the premise that the nodes are not allowed to transmit while their one-hop neighbors receive. An analytical model which jointly considers the impacts of network parameters, scheduling parameters and frame structure design is constructed. The optimal number of control slots that maximizes the effective throughput is further obtained under certain traffic volume, node density and hold-off exponent. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the theoretical model. The upper bound of MAC layer effective throughput under different network settings is presented.