Bid activation multiple access in ad hoc networks

We present a new protocol for collision-free channel access in ad hoc networks called Bid Activation Multiple Access (BAMA). BAMA is based on bids made by nodes for slots within the context of probabilistic channel access. Winners a the bids for a given slot are determined as of result of a fair election of the bids for that slot. Nodes attempt to acquire varying number of slots depending on their traffic requirements. Nodes transmit their schedule information once in each frame prior to the data packet transmission in the slots acquired by them. Mismatched schedule information for a given slot are corrected based on the same fair election by the nodes that hear the schedule information. BAMA does not require explicit control information (HELLO packets) to build up local or global topology of the nodes to compute a transmission schedule for the nodes. The performance of BAMA is studied by simulations and compared against the performance of comparable protocols. It is found that BAMA provides better throughput and much lower end to end delay when compared to other protocols, both at low loads as well as high loads. The traffic adaptive nature of BAMA allows for the performance of BAMA to be largely independent of the network load. This makes it ideal for deployment in high bandwidth scenarios where low end to end delay is desirable.