Location-free topology control protocol in wireless ad hoc networks

Topology control not only achieves the objective of power saving but also increases the system throughput by increasing the spatial reuse of communication channels. However, there exists a hidden terminal problem due to asymmetric transmission radii among nodes after topology control. In this paper, we propose a distributed protocol that deals with topology control at network layer and hidden terminal problem at MAC layer. Each node in the networks determines its power for data transmission and control packets transmission according to the received beacon messages from its neighbors. The proposed protocol works without location information and uses little control packet overhead to prevent the potential collisions due to the hidden terminals. Simulations show that our protocol significantly decreases total power consumption in the networks and has a better network throughput compared to previous work.