Adaptive TDMA slot assignment protocol for vehicular ad-hoc networks

This paper proposes a novel adaptive time division multiple access (TDMA) slot assignment protocol (ATSA) for vehicular ad-hoc networks. ATSA divides different sets of time slots according to vehicles moving in opposite directions. When a node accesses the networks, it choices a frame length and competes a slot based on its direction and location to communication with the other nodes. Based on the binary tree algorithm, the frame length is dynamically doubled or shortened, and the ratio of two slot sets is adjusted to decrease the probability of transmission collisions. The theoretical analysis proves ATSA protocol can reduce the time delay at least 20% than the media access control protocol for vehicular ad-hoc networks (VeMAC) and 30% than the ad-hoc. The simulation experiment shows that ATSA has a good scalability and the collisions would be reduced about 50% than VeMAC, channel utilization is significantly improved than several existing protocols. © 2013 The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications.