Analysis of medium access control algorithms for directional sensor networks in space

In this paper we present a performance analysis of three medium access control (MAC) algorithms: slotted ALOHA, reservation ALOHA, and time division multiple access (TDMA). In order to capture the performance impact of directional antenna, large bandwidth-delay product channels, and non-uniform traffic load on sensor networks in space, we model each MAC algorithm as a system of symmetric interfering queues. Approximation technique is then applied to derive closed form expressions for throughput, average delay, and average queue size as a function of propagation delay, channel bandwidth, network size, and traffic load. We also describe a pipelining operation for random access MAC and show that it improves the throughput capacity of the random access MAC algorithms significantly under high bandwidth-delay product conditions.