A comparison of access methods for multi-hop ad hoc radio networks

For mobile radio networks without guaranteed connections to fixed infrastructure, simple non-centralized network control is desirable in order to reduce the administrative traffic in the network. In this paper, we analyze and compare two asynchronous non-centralized access schemes in the case of multi-hop ad hoc networks. The first is a new protocol based on time-hopping code division multiple access (TH-CDMA), and the second is based on carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA). The new ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio technique makes the first scheme an interesting option. A third scheme, a synchronous spatial time-division multiple access (STDMA) scheme is also included in the comparison as a reference