A Dual-Mode MAC Protocol over Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This chapter presents a dual-mode media access control protocol (DM-MAC) for mobile ad hoc networks, which is suitable for applications in modern cooperative air combat. DM-MAC is a hybrid access scheme that combines contention-free and contention-based protocol in a positive way. In the presence of manager node, DM-MAC works on the collision-free access mode based on TDMA mechanism, while it transforms its operation into the efficient cooperative access mode based on concurrent transmission when the manager node disappears. Simulation results showed that DM-MAC can self-adjust media access mode according to the presence or absence of manager node. In addition, DM-MAC performed better than IEEE 802.11 DCF in terms of one-hop throughput and media access delay under high traffic loads.