Improving Full-Duplex MAC Protocols for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks with Many-to-Many Multiuser Communication

Abstract

The convenience delivered by wireless communication has made this technology increas ingly prevalent in our modern society in the last decades, and with that, the word appeals for constant improvements. The full-duplex radios can enhance wireless networks, i.e., the ability to receive information while transmitting data in the same frequency bandwidth, which has been growing mainly because of its benefits. The prospect of achieving double throughput and more efficient bandwidth utilization might be the most envisioned benefits due to appli cation requirements that frequently demand more data transfer with more efficiency. Before the wireless full-duplex was feasible, one way to improve these aspects was to employ a multi user technique. Regarding the multi-user approach, the Many-to-Many MAC (M2MMAC), a medium access control (MAC) protocol, has significantly increased the network throughput. This work focuses on the challenges and opportunities in the MAC layer aspects while employ ing full-duplex technology. With that in mind, this work reviews the full-duplex MAC protocols state-of-art. This work presents two protocols, the FD-M2MMAC (Full-Duplex Many-to-Many MAC) and its improved version, the EFD-M2MMAC (Enhanced Full-Duplex Many-to-Many MAC) that combines full-duplex technology with multi-user techniques to increase network throughput.