D-MCMA: a new multiple access protocol for distributed wireless local networks

The C-MCMA protocol has been proposed as an efficient and flexible multiple access protocol for use in centralized wireless local networks. In this paper we modify the operation of CMCMA for use in distributed wireless networks, constituted by a set of portable stations that communicate directly by single-hop packet radio. The resulting protocol is called distributed minipacket competition multiple access (D-MCMA). Simple analytical models are developed in order to compare the performance of D-MCMA with that of a traditional CSMA protocol, taking into account (i) receiver capture effects; (ii) acknowledgement traffic; (iii) request-response interactions; (iv) variable length data packets; (v) slow varying fading conditions. It is concluded that for a class of interesting values for the parameters of the models considered D-MCMA outperforms CSMA, this being specially true in slow varying fading environments