A scheduling algorithm for wireless networks with large propagation delays

Abstract

Underwater acoustic networks can have large propagation delays as compared to typical packet durations, as a result of the low speed of sound in water. The ill effects of large propagation delay on medium access control (MAC) are well known. Conventional MAC protocol design for such networks focuses on mitigation of the impact of propagation delay. Most proposed protocols to date achieve, at best, a throughput similar to that of the zero propagation delay scenario. We have explored the possibility that propagation delays can be exploited to make throughput far exceed that of networks without propagation delay and shown that the throughput of a N-node wireless network with propagation delay is upper bounded by N/2. In a small set of illustrative network geometries, we can manually determine transmission schedules that allow us to achieve this N/2 bound. However, for a given network, the problem of determining transmission schedules that maximize throughput is as yet unsolved. In this paper, we put forward an algorithm that generates transmission schedules with high throughput for arbitrary network geometries. © 2010 CROWN.