A SINR-Based MAC Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we propose a power control MAC protocol that improves the spatial reuse of wireless channels and the energy efficiency for the wireless nodes. The main idea is to adopt IEEE 802.11 [1] Power Saving Mechanism (PSM) with the appropriate power control scheme for the wireless ad hoc networks. All control messages containing the transmission power information are transmitted at the maximum transmission power in the Announcement Traffic Indication Message (ATIM) window while the data packets are sent at the minimum required transmission power during the data window. Based on the sensing power or the transmission power information of the control messages, a neighbor node checks whether it can transmit simultaneously. Simulation results show the advantages of the proposed protocol in terms of the aggregate throughput, average delay, energy efficiency and fairness index.