TDMA-based protocols with a connection setup mechanism can be used to provide QoS guarantees in a network. Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are multi-hop in nature and supporting QoS intensive application on them requires multi-hop TDMA-based protocol. However, most designs of TDMA-based protocols are limited to single-hop based settings.
In this work, we have designed, implemented and evaluated a centrally-controlled TDMA-based MAC protocol for multi-hop wireless networks. To accommodate the changing traffic requirements of the network, the protocol makes use of dynamic scheduling, and therefore, has a mechanism for schedule dissemination. This makes it suitable for real-time voice/video applications.
Our design is not limited to any particular wireless technology. The implementation is carried out on tmote-sky. The achieved throughput is upto 90 percent of the optimal throughput, which is good enough to support 1-2 GSM-quality voice calls simultaneously over three hops, and even more, over lesser number of hops. We have also conducted feasibility studies for 802.11-based platforms and concluded that an implementation could provide throughput greater than that of the existing CSMA/CA MAC.
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Gaurav Chhawchharia can be reached at gchhawchharia[AT]gmail.com.