MMMP: A MAC Protocol to Ensure QoS for Multimedia Traffic over Multi-hop Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we discuss a novel reservation-based, asynchronous MAC protocol called 'Multi-rate Multi-hop MAC Protocol' (MMMP) for multi-hop ad hoc networks that provides QoS guarantees for multimedia traffic. MMMP achieves this by providing service differentiation for multirate real-time traffic (both constant and variable bit rate traffic) and guaranteeing a bounded end-to-end delay for the same while still catering to the throughput requirements of non real time traffic. In addition, it administers bandwidth preservation via a feature called 'Smart Drop' and implements efficient bandwidth usage through a mechanism called 'Release Bandwidth'. Simulation results on the QualNet simulator indicate that MMMP outperforms IEEE 802.11 on all performance metrics and can efficiently handle a large range of traffic intensity. It also outperforms other similar state-of-the-art MAC protocols.