DT-MAC: An Efficient and Scalable Medium Access Control Protocol for Wireless Networks

Recent advancements in wireless protocols and technologies such as IEEE 802.11n enhances communication systems in terms of offering high physical rates that are well-suited for multimedia and bandwidth-hungry applications. Since efficiency at the medium access control (MAC) layer decreases with increasing the physical rate, few researches have used aggregation, as a compensatory method, to improve efficiency. They have, however, underscored scalability in terms of parameters such as physical rate or number of users. Thus, providing a more scalable MAC protocol has become as issue of paramount concern. In this paper, we propose the Dual-channel Token-based MAC (DT-MAC) protocol that can provide scalability and improve efficiency especially for a large number of users and high physical rates. Then, DT-MAC is analytically evaluated in saturated conditions, and a predictable and optimal bandwidth allocation scheme to sub-channels is proposed. Simulation results for various parameters show that DT-MAC can approximately improve throughput 68% and decrease transmission delay and jitter nearly 90% compared with IEEE 802.11n for a dense high-data-rate single-hop network and operates well under low load.