Dynamic Cooperative MAC Protocol for Navigation Carrier Ad Hoc Networks: A DiffServ-Based Approach

In this paper, a dynamic cooperative MAC protocol (DDC-MAC) based on cluster network topology is proposed, which has the capability of differentiated service mechanisms and long-range communication. In DDC-MAC, heterogeneous communications are classified according to service types and quality of service (QoS) requirements, i.e., periodic communication mode (PC mode) is extracted with a QoS guarantee for high-frequency periodic information exchange based on adapt-TDMA mechanisms, while other services are classified as being in on-demand communication mode (OC mode), which includes channel contention and access mechanisms based on a multiple priority algorithm. OC mode is embedded into the adapt-TDMA process adaptively, and the two communication modes can work in parallel. Furthermore, adaptive array hybrid antenna systems and cooperative communication with optimal relay are presented, to exploit the opportunity for long-range transmission, while an adaptive channel back-off sequence is deduced, to mitigate packet collision and network congestion. Moreover, we developed an analytical framework to quantify the performance of the DDC-MAC protocol and conducted extensive simulation. Simulation results show that the proposed DDC-MAC protocol enhances network performance in diverse scenarios, and significantly improves network throughput and reduces average delay compared with other MAC protocols