Energy efficiency analysis of a cooperative scheme for wireless local area networks

The Persistent Relay Carrier Sensing Multiple Access (PRCSMA) Protocol has been proposed in the literature as a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol suitable for Cooperative Automatic Retransmission Request (C-ARQ) schemes. The improvement in throughput achieved with PRCSMA is already known. In this paper, we analyze the energy efficiency of this protocol to assess application to energy-constrained networks. Towards this aim, a suitable energy model is derived. The model has been validated through computer simulations and shows that a C-ARQ based on PRCSMA can help improve the energy efficiency of wireless communications and thus increase the lifetime of devices.