On the performance of using CSMA for broadcast traffic in tactical ad hoc networks

This paper investigates the possible use of Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) for transmitting broadcast traffic in mobile military ad hoc networks. On the network layer, multipoint relay (MPR) flooding is used, which is a commonly used protocol for multicast and broadcast traffic in ad hoc networks. Network simulations show that when MPR flooding is used with CSMA, robustness problems arise. Under high traffic loads or in sparse networks, MPR-node selection fails due to a high number of collisions. This results in a very limited network capacity for broadcast traffic. Finally, CSMA is compared to a system using a fixed time division multiple access protocol.