Direction and Communication-Aware Directional Mac Protocol in Ad Hoc Networks Using Directional Antenna

Our major contribution in this paper is to devise a MAC protocol that exploits the advantages of directional antenna in ad hoc networks for improved system performance. In order to implement effective MAC protocol in this context, a node should know how to set its transmission direction to transmit a packet to its neighbors and to avoid transmission in other directions where data communications are already in progress. In this paper, we are proposing a receiver-centric approach for direction and communication-aware MAC (DCA-MAC) protocol, so that, nodes become aware of its neighborhood and also the direction of the nodes for communicating directionally. Our proposed directional MAC protocol can be effective in both ITS (intelligent transportation system), which we simulate in string and parallel topology, and in any community network, which we simulate in random topology. The performance evaluation on QualNet network simulator clearly indicates the efficiency of our protocol. In addition, under the fading channel conditions, it´s difficult for each node to perceive the status of the neighbors. In AWGN, Ricean and fading environments, we compare and analyze the performance of omnidirectional MAC, conventional directional MAC and our proposed directional MAC