Bi-code channel access method for ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks operate conventionally on a contention based common channel where harmful collisions bring problems with increasing traffic load. The use of code division multiple access (CDMA) increases the capacity by allowing multiple successful transmissions simultaneously within the limits of multiple access interference (MAI). However, so far, most of the studies on CDMA ad hoc networking have concentrated on complex schemes like transmitter based orthogonal coding. This paper takes a cross-layered design approach for ad hoc networking, and proposes a CDMA-based bi-code channel access methods. In this method, two channels are tracked at the receiver. One is used as a dedicated receiver based channel for robust data transmission, and the other is used as a common access channel. It is shown that this method outperforms traditional methods and still is easy to implement over different platforms, robust for the design parameters and different conditions while maintaining the original idea of ad hoc networking.