Power consumption and throughput in mobile ad hoc networks using directional antennas

We present medium access control (MAC) protocols for mobile ad hoc networks that utilize directional antennas. The use of directional antennas in place of traditional omnidirectional antennas reduces interference and thereby improves the throughput performance of the network. An additional advantage of using directional antennas is due to its higher gain from its directivity, which can be utilized to reduce the transmission power during a directional transmission. In order to maximally utilize the savings in the average power consumption in the network, we propose a power control scheme that maintains a minimum transmission power level for effective transmission of packets using directional antennas. We present simulation results showing the throughput advantage and the savings in the average consumed power in the network using the proposed protocol. We also present results showing the maximum possible savings in power consumption in the same network when an ideal power control scheme is applied.