An enhanced multi-packet reception MAC protocol: Cooperative approach

An enhanced medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless networks with multi-packet reception (MPR) capability is proposed. The proposed protocol is based on the dynamic multi-group priority queueing protocol recently introduced to exploit the cooperative diversity for improving the system throughput. Two kinds of throughput losses, i.e., over-loaded loss and under-loaded loss, are defined first to clarify the opportunity of improvement. A Markov chain analysis is provided as the theoretical background. It is shown that the under-loaded loss can be compensated by cooperation among users in light traffic environment, and the system throughput can be improved accordingly. Simulations further compare the delay and packet loss ratio with and without cooperation, it is found the average performance is improved too.