A distributed power adaptation algorithm for multimedia delivery over ad hoc networks

There has been an increasing interest in recent years to deliver multimedia services over wireless ad hoc networks. Due to the existence of hidden terminal and absence of central control, the MAC protocol as used in the ad hoc networks may lead to channel capture, where some flows monopolize the channel while others suffer from starvation. This greatly degrades system throughput and fairness. After showing that static power control leads to channel capture, we propose and study a distributed dynamic power control scheme to break the capture. Our power control algorithm offers much higher fairness without compromising system throughput by better spatial reuse.