Spatial synchronous TDMA in multihop radio network

As a new form of wireless communication, the multihop radio network has gained lots of attention in recent years. Most researches are based on IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN MAC. We feel many inherent problems prevent these multihop networks from operating efficiently. In this paper we analyze inefficiency in IEEE 802.11 and propose spatial synchronous TDMA (SS-TDMA). Our simulations show huge performance improvement and suggest the importance of MAC design in multihop radio networking. From the investigation we believe that multihop radio networking is challenging, therefore cooperation between layers is vital, and the future of multihop networks lies in the cross-layer design and integration with existing wireless network infrastructure.