A distributed MAC scheme supporting voice services in mobile ad hoc networks

Future mobile ad hoc networks are expected to support voice traffic. The requirement for small delay and jitter of voice traffic poses a significant challenge for medium access control (MAC) in such networks. User mobility presents unique difficulties in this context due to the associated dynamic path attenuation. In this paper, a MAC scheme for mobile ad hoc networks supporting voice traffic is proposed. With the aid of a low-power probe prior to DATA transmissions, resource reservation is achieved in a distributed manner, thus leading to small packet transmission delay and jitter. The proposed scheme can automatically adapt to dynamic path attenuation in a mobile environment. Statistical multiplexing of on-off voice traffic can also be achieved by partial resource reservation for off voice flows. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. A medium access control (MAC) scheme for mobile ad hoc networks supporting voice traffic is proposed. Resource reservation is achieved in a distributed manner, thus leading to small packet transmission delay and jitter. The proposed scheme can automatically adapt to dynamic path attenuation in a mobile environment. This paper was presented in part at IEEE GLOBECOM 2007.