A MAC Interaction Aware Routing Metric in Wireless Networks

摘要

Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) based MAC protocols induce several types of harmful interactions, such as hidden and exposed terminals, in wireless networks. Existing routing protocols do not consider the effect of these MAC interactions on route quality, leading to the selection of inefficient routes. We propose a MAC Interaction Aware Routing Metric (MIAR) that explicitly accounts for MAC interactions among the links forming a route. The protocol favors routes with links that have better interactions and avoids ones with detrimental interactions. We compare the performance of the proposed metric with an existing shortest-path routing protocol and show that our metric substantially improves the performance and efficiency of the network.