Saturation Throughput Analysis of a Cluster-based Medium Access Control Protocol for Single-hop Ad Hoc Wireless Networks.

This paper presents a novel analytical approach to calculate the saturation throughput of the Distributed Queuing Medium Access Control protocol for Ad Hoc Networks (DQMAN) in single-hop scenarios. DQMAN integrates a near-optimum MAC protocol into a passive clustering algorithm based on Carrier Sensing Multiple Access (CSMA). Therefore, based on models of both CSMA and centralized MAC protocols, a new model is presented to accurately calculate the saturation throughput of DQMAN in single-hop networks. In addition, the model presented can be extended to any MAC protocol based on the spontaneous clustering concept of DQMAN. The accuracy of the overall model has been assessed through link-level computer simulations. A performance evaluation of the protocol under different configurations is also presented together with a performance comparison with the IEEE 802.11 standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]