Evaluation of a distributed TDMA rescheduling procedure for mobile packet radio networks

A methodology, consisting of three procedures, that maximizes the use of the bandwidth for a TDMA (time-division multiple access) schedule and allows mobile nodes to locally reschedule transmission slots is described. To evaluate the performance, the methodology is implemented in a detailed radio network simulation. The parameters incorporated into the simulation include the network topology, the time between moves, the length of the TDMA frame, the sampling interval used before starting the collision resolution or secondary assignment procedure, and the error rate. The performance measure used is average packet delay time. Simulation verified that the procedures considered operate correctly in a dynamic environment and correctly recovered from transmission error and collisions. While there are many factors that affect the average packet delay, the most significant are the TDMA frame length, the move rate, and the error rates