A DISTRIBUTED WIRELESS MEDIUM ACCESS CONTROL PROTOCOL FOR AD-HOC NETWORKS

摘要

A distributed wireless medium access control protocol is disclosed. According tothe disclosed wireless medium access control protocol the medium access time ispartitioned into equal sized slots, and a predetermined number of the slots forminga superframe. The protocol defines beaconing devices and passive devices. Eachbeaconing device designates one of the slots in the superframe as its beacon mediumaccess slot, and broadcasts during that beacon medium access slot a beacon frameto other devices in wireless range of that beaconing device. A beacon frame collisiondetection and resolution procedure, and a procedure for reserving access timefor communication between devices are also disclosed.