Lossless contention ultraviolet MAC protocol based on dynamic bandwidth allocation

Ultraviolet (UV) optical communication can eliminate aiming, tracking, and pointing systems in conventional free-space optical (FSO) communications, rendering it more suitable for small and micro platforms. Currently, efficient medium access control (MAC) layer protocols for UV optical communication are lacking. To further improve the channel utilization of UV networks, an ultraviolet lossless contention MAC protocol with dynamic bandwidth allocation (UVLLC-DBA) based on optical power superposition was proposed. Simultaneously, the protocol employed token buckets to allocate bandwidth for different services, thereby enabling differentiated services. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol can achieve dynamic bandwidth allocation and has nearly 100% channel utilization and acceptable delay, providing a reference for the development of a UV MAC protocol.