A novel MAC protocol for MANETs using smart antenna system

Throughput enhancement of a wireless ad hoc at the media access (MAC) layer is achieved through spatial reuse of the channel by allowing concurrent transmissions as much as possible among neighboring nodes. In this paper, we present a novel high-throughput MAC protocol, called Multiple Beam Antenna Array MAC (MBAA-MAC), which supports concurrent transmission while having simple design, single transmission power network architecture and single transceiver. MBAA-MAC uses benefits of the directional antennas to improve the throughput of the network. Prior to data packet transmission, direction and location of the neighboring nodes is performed through RTS/CTS exchange. In this protocol, additional control gap is inserted between RTS/CTS and DATA packets, which allow exchange of a series of RTS/CTS packets of neighboring nodes to schedule their possible concurrent data transmissions. Simulation results show that a considerable gain in throughput can be obtained by MBAA-MAC protocol compared to the existing IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol.