STAGGERED MULTICAST PROTOCOL WITH COLLISION-FREE ACKNOWLEDGMENT IN MULTIHOP SPREAD-SPECTRUM PACKET RADIO NETWORKS

The staggered multicast protocol for multihop spread spectrum packet radio networks is suitable for unicasting and broadcasting as well as multicasting. The common-header/transmitter-based spreading code is used for data packet transmission and the receiver-based code is used for acknowledgement packet transmission. By staggering packet transmission the protocol can significantly reduce broadcasting delay. A special addressing method and packet format are also designed to achieve collision-free acknowledgement and multicast capability. Simulation results show that the protocol provides better throughput-delay performance than the common-header/transmitter-based slotted ALOHA protocol.