A novel MAC protocol for hidden receiver problem in ad hoc networks

Hidden receiver problem remains a primary issue in ad hoc networks. Due to its ignorance of state of the hidden terminal, the potential sender, which is a neighbor of hidden terminal, enters into an unnecessary backoff and retransmission circle, incurring serious unfairness between contention traffics. The proposed Explicit Blocking Notification (EBN) scheme adopts a novel handshake sequence to notify the potential sender in advance to avoid blindly backoff. The experiments conducted prove that our EBN scheme achieves better fairness between competing traffics in addition to stabilizing the throughput with only a negligible overhead.