Performance analysis of hybrid protocol based on dynamic contention window for power line communication systems

Home networking using powerline communication (PLC) system is evolving from simple voice service to multimedia platforms that offer a variety of services for home automation. The media access control (MAC) protocol used in the PLC network has to provide large flexibility and scalability to match these heterogeneous requirements. In this paper the MAC analysis using hybrid protocol, which is based on virtual slot multiple access (VSMA) has been proposed. An adaptive backoff mechanism has been adopted to dynamically select the optimal contention window according to the estimate of the number of contending stations and priority of the services. This hybrid protocol has been analyzed and simulated for variable packet sizes, the results obtained depicts that the proposed hybrid system enhances the throughput and reduces the delay for various services as compared with the conventional protocol.