Channel prediction based MAC layer access scheme of broadband power line communication network

To realize opportunistic MAC (Media Access Control) layer access and to avoid collision in channel competition among nodes in broadband power line communications (BPLC), this paper proposes a channel prediction based access control scheme of MAC layer in the BPLC network. Since the process of occupying channels was unexpected, the semi-markov process is adopted to predict channel competition activitis. This proposed scheme substantially utilizes channel sensing results and the channel competition condition to predict channel state in the next time and the remainder time, and adopts the method of recursive prediction error (RPE) to parameter estimation. Compared to traditional carrier sensing multiple access algorithm (CSMA), the simulation result shows the proposed approach can greatly improve the BPLC network efficiency in terms of collision rate and packet loss rate.