Design of MAC Protocols for Underwater Acoustic Ad Hoc Networks

The relative merits of ALOHA and the multiple access with collision avoidance (MACA) for the underwater acoustic Ad hoc networks were analyzed. After that, a new media access control (MAC) protocol was proposed which had the advantages of the above two MAC protocols. When the networks load is not heavy, the new protocol uses the channel access method in ALOHA. So the spending of the handshake time is less than MACA. As the network load increases, the new protocol uses the handshake in MACA. Thereby the packet loss ratio is lower than the ALOHA. The simulation shows that the new protocol has higher reliability and less end-to-end delay. And the performance of the new protocol is better than ALOHA and MACA.