Mechanisms for Multi-Packet Reception Protocols in Multi-Hop Networks

We consider multi-hop wireless networks composed of nodes with transceivers capable of multi-packet transmission and reception (MPT/MPR). Legacy MAC protocols based on CSMA/CA are overly restrictive in the interest of avoiding collisions, and are unable to exploit the MPR capability of receivers. We demonstrate how a combination of mechanisms, based on well-known techniques, such as Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD), and the back--pressure (BP) principle, can be used to effectively control medium access in multi-hop MPT/MPR networks. The AIMD component is used to regulate the size of \"bundles\" of simultaneously transmitted packets, while back--pressure provides the basis for prioritizing, locally, which flows' packets should be transmitted in a bundle. We study the performance of the proposed protocol, AB-MAC, under three different models of node coordination in static wireless multi-hop MPT/MPR networks. We find that, under various scenarios and for the same capacity resources, AB-MAC's throughput performance surpasses that of IEEE 802.11b.