An approach for modestly directional communications in mobile ad hoc networks

Directional antennas are a promising technology for use in mobile ad hoc environments. By consuming smaller volumes than omni directional antennas, directional antennas enable significant increases in network capacity by allowing more simultaneous transmissions to occur within a multihop wireless network. In this paper, we present some of the challenges that face asynchronous directional channel access schemes and describe how these problems can be avoided by taking a synchronous approach. We describe a communications system architecture that enables modestly directional sectored antennas to be effectively exploited in a mobile ad hoc environment. A key part of this architecture is the directional synchronous unscheduled multiple access (DSUMA) protocol. By making intelligent decisions regarding the enabling/disabling of sector antennas, DSUMA provides an increased density of transmissions while insuring that collisions do not occur. Our results indicate how the number of sectors per node affects performance in terms of spatial reuse, the likelihood of collisions, and overall network capacity.