A near-optimum channel access protocol based on incremental collision resolution and distributed transmission queues

We introduce a new stable multiple access protocol for broadcast channels shared by multiple stations, which we call the incremental collision resolution multiple access (ICRMA) protocol. ICRMA dynamically divides the channel into cycles of variable length; each cycle consists of a contention period and a queue-transmission period. The queue-transmission period is a variable-length train of packets, which are transmitted by stations that have been added to the distributed transmission queue by successfully completing a collision-resolution round in a previous contention period. During the contention period, stations with one or more packets to send compete for the right to be added to the data-transmission queue using a deterministic tree-splitting algorithm. A single round of collision resolution is allowed in each contention period. Analytical results show that collision resolution in ICRMA is much more efficient than DQRAP´s. Simulation and analytical results show that ICRMA´s throughput is within 5% of the throughput achieved by the ideal channel access protocol based on a distributed transmission queue and incremental collision resolution