Empirical Study of Mobility effect on IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol for Mobile Ad- Hoc Networks

To design an efficient and effective MAC layer protocol for Mobile Ad-Hoc networks is a challenging task. IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol, which supports ad hoc network mode, provides a good reference for research work in this area. In the recent years, many researchers have investigated the performance of IEEE 802.11 on MANET both theoretically and empirically. However, the impact of the mobility on MAC layer design has not been evaluated thoroughly. In our research, we used OPNET simulator to analyze the performance of IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol under various mobility patterns for different network topologies. The findings revealed interesting correlation between the speed of movement/ the mobility pattern and key network performance parameters including delay and throughput. We also investigated the impact of mobility on fairness issues in media access. The empirical study presented in this paper will be useful to enhance the MAC design of MANET with median or high mobility nodes.