A survey of medium access control protocols for wireless ad hoc networks

A number of issues distinguishes Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for wireless networks from those used in wireline systems. In addition, for ad-hoc networks, the characteristics of the radio channel, the diverse physical-layer technologies available and the range of services envisioned make it a difficult task to design an algorithm to discipline the access to the shared medium that results efficient, fair, power consumption sensitive and delay bound. This article presents the current “state-of-art” in this area, including solutions already commercially available as well as those still in study