Multihop MAC Protocol for MC-CDMA based WLANs

Inhalt:
Besides reducing interference, multihop transmissions are essential for coverage extension and interconnection of different subnetworks. In rich scattering environments, especially in home and office environments, the coverage of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN)s is considerably decreased. One of the ways to provide continuous coverage is deploying multihop networks. In this paper, multihop functionality extension for the Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) based Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) is presented. The proposed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol deals efficiently with the problem of packet forwarding without raising the system’s complexity, while exploiting the multi channel structure of the MC-CDMA based system. It must be noted that the proposed solutions are not limited to MC-CDMA networks but can be easily adapted by other systems with multi channel structure, where multiple channel separation is not necessarily done in code domain.