DESIGN OF AN ENERGY-AWARE ENHANCED COOPERATIVE MAC PROTOCOL IN MOBILE AD HOC NETWORKS

In this paper, we present a new energy-efficient cooperative MAC protocol, called the e(2)BT-COMAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks, and evaluate its performance. In the proposed MAC protocol, which is an enhanced version of our previous eBT-COMAC protocol, a cross-layer energy-aware strategy for cooperative communication is employed using mobile nodes. Considering a random waypoint mobility model for all mobile nodes, we compare the system throughput and network lifetime of the e(2)BT-COMAC protocol with previously proposed cooperative MAC protocols. Using a new metric that is a weighted combination of normalized system throughput and lifetime, we determine optimal values of system parameters, e.g., the number of mini-slots used during helper-node selection. Numerical simulation results reveal that the e(2)BT-COMAC protocol offers system throughput similar to that of the eBT-COMAC protocol but provides the best network lifetime performance among four different schemes. The calculation of optimal mini-slot values for a varying number of helper nodes can guide the design and operation of the proposed e(2)BT-COMAC protocol into a conducive way.