Dual-Radio-Assisted (DRA) MAC Protocols for Distributed Terahertz Networks

Terahertz (THz) communication is envisioned as one of the key technologies to satisfy high data rate demand intelligent 6G networks. However, directional transmissions, well peculiarities THz band, pose challenges on medium access control (MAC) design. In this paper, a dual-radio-assisted MAC protocol supporting concurrent transmission proposed, in which 2.4/5 GHz omnidirectional radio utilized for signaling, while beamforming adopted transmissions. The request-to-send (RTS-GHz)/test-to-transmit (TTT-THz) handshake initial link establishment. Furthermore, network table constructed at each node recording receiver-oriented allocation vector (RNAV) value, angle-of-departure (AoD) DATA, and angle-of-arrival (AoA) RTS-GHz. RNAV record enables without collision. first two dominant AoA paths alleviates LoS blockage problem. AoD further decreases association delay by replacing RTS-THz with Network performances are analytically numerically investigated. Results indicate that proposed DRA-MAC memory can achieve 88.2%, 51.6%, 50% improvement average delay, throughput, alleviation respectively, compared existing protocols.