Adaptive-cycle tunable-access (ACTA) protocol: A simple, high-performance protocol for tunable-channel multi-access (TCMA) networks

The ACTA protocol, a very simple multichannel bus/ring network protocol suitable for high-speed multimedia integrated networks, is described. It is based on adaptive variation of cycle lengths according to network loading. It requires only two control bits per slot in the media access, and thus can be made slot-compatible to many other protocols, such as DQDB and ATM (asynchronous transfer mode). ACTA can be used for the class of TCMA networks which features increased bandwidth capacity and reduced mode complexity. The major advantages of ACTA are its simple media access, reduced processing, and throughput performance, which could be ⩾0.9 (normalized) per channel with good features even under heavily overloaded conditions. This has been verified by network simulations for 1024 nodes on 16 channels