Multi-code DSSS MAC protocol for integrated services wireless home networks

This paper proposes a MAC protocol which incorporates direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) technology and a hybrid automatic repeat request (ARQ) scheme with variable length protocol data unit (PDU) for efficient transmission in wireless home networks with error-prone indoor wireless channel. By using multiple code channels simultaneously, the protocol is capable of delivering high bit rates without sacrificing processing gain. The protocol combines reservations, time division duplexing and dynamic time division multiple access (TDD/DTDMA) to arbitrate the access of variable length packets from various appliances. A soft blocking prevention scheme is also developed to reduce the failure probability of reservation requests which are submitted in code division multiplexing (CDM) manner.