Design and performance evaluation of a new medium access control protocol for local wireless data communications

This paper proposes a new medium access control protocol for wireless data communications in local area, called the reservation-based multiple access with variable frame length (RMAV). We design RMAV under the consideration that the population of wireless terminals and the system load frequently change and are almost unpredictable in wireless data communications. RMAV is based on the slot reservation scheme and adopts a frame structure with variable length. The frame length increases as the number of active terminals and/or the system load increases. We evaluate the performance of RMAV by analysis and computer simulation. Due to its adaptability to traffic patterns, RMAV offers short delay in light load conditions and high throughput in heavy load conditions.