Multiple receiver transmission strategy for receiver blocking problem in wireless multi-hop networks

Due to the lack of a centralized coordinator for wireless resource allocation, the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols is considered crucial for throughput enhancement in the wireless multi-hop networks. The receiver blocking problem, which has not been studied in most of the MAC protocol design, can lead to severe degradation for the throughput performance. In this paper, the multiple receiver transmission (MRT) mechanism is proposed to alleviate the receiver blocking problem without the adoption of additional control channels. The performance evaluation of the MRT technique is conducted via simulations and is compared with the conventional IEEE 802.11a MAC protocol. Based on the simulation results, it can be observed that the proposed MRT scheme can alleviate the receiver blocking problem, which effectively enhances the system throughput for wireless multi-hop networks.