Impact of directional antennas on contention based MAC protocols in ad hoc networks

Recently, ad hoc networks using directional antennas have been actively studied because they can achieve many advantages such as increased spatial reuse, reduced interference and energy saving, resulting in performance improvement as compared to omnidirectional antennas. In this paper, we study the impact of directional antennas on contention based MAC (Medium Access Control) protocols in ad hoc networks. The contention based MAC protocols for ad hoc networks with directional antennas are reviewed and qualitatively compared and, then, the superiority of directional antennas to omnidirectional ones in ad hoc networks with contention based MAC is evaluated and quantitatively compared via simulation.