Dish networks: Protocols, strategies, analysis, and implementation

Abstract

We introduce Distributed Information SHaring (DISH) as a new approach for wireless network protocol design. The basic idea is to allow neighboring nodes to cooperatively share control information with nodes who need it to aid in their decisions making. DISH is a distributed flavor of control-plane cooperation which augments the conventional understanding of cooperation at the data plane.In this thesis, we apply DISH to multi-channel networks. First, we propose a DISH-based MAC protocol called CAM-MAC. It uses a single transceiver and is fully asynchronous, and its throughput outperforms three recent and representative multi-channel protocols, MMAC, SSCH, and AMCP. Second, we analyze DISH by evaluating the availability of cooperation in a multi-hop network. Third, we explore energy issues in DISH and show that altruistic cooperation is extremely simple yet very energy-efficient. Fourth, we implement our proposals on COTS hardware. To the best of our knowledge, these prototypes are the first full implementation of asynchronous multi-channel MAC protocols for ad hoc networks.