Scalability of Wireless MAC Protocols in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of lightweight wireless mobile devices, such as laptops, PDAs, and sensors makes mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) an exciting and important research area nowadays. The MANET community have been concentrating on some problems related to the network layer, especially on the routing protocols. But regarding the MAC layer, little has been done. Our contri- bution in this paper is the deep investigation of the MAC protocols scalability in MANETs, using the GloMoSim simulation tool. We think we are the first who consider the scalability factor when analyzing MAC protocols in MANETs.