A MAC Layer Protocol for Priority-based Reliable Broadcast in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

RTS-CTS handshake based protocols achieve “reliable unicast” by eliminating the hidden node problem effectively, however, these solutions are not directly or efficiently generalizable for solving the single-hop “reliable broadcast” problem, and broadcast remains as a best-effort operation in wireless ad hoc networks. Here we present a simple, light-weight, and self-stabilizing MAC protocol, namely Busy Elimination Multiple Access (BEMA) protocol, for solving the single-hop reliable broadcast problem. BEMA grants on-demand access to the channel —rather than assigning fixed slots as in TDMA based approaches— and also supports prioritization of traffic, thereby providing a useful building block for applications with reliability and quality-of-service requirements.