Efficient multi-rate relaying (EMR) MAC protocol for ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a multi-rate CSMA/CA-based MAC protocol, which we refer to as EMR, to enable fast forwarding of frames in a more efficient manner. We use the base-rate RTS and CTS frames to reserve a long transmission path and utilize intermediate nodes to relay the data frames using shorter transmission distance but with more efficient transmission rates. Results show that our EMR scheme can outperform the traditional multi-rate forwarding scheme by 18% and 49.4% in a low-density and high-density ad hoc network, respectively.