An energy-balanced cooperative MAC protocol based on opportunistic relaying in MANETs

An unreliable wireless communication environment and limited energy resources have a severe impact on the Quality of Service (QoS) of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). To improve network performance, an Energy-balanced Cooperative Media Access Control (EC-MAC) protocol in MANETs is proposed in this paper. It adopts the best partnership selection algorithm based on opportunistic relaying to select the cooperative node with the best channel conditions, highest transmission rate and most balanced energy consumption. The simulation results of EC-MAC, Cooperative MAC (CoopMAC) and IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) protocols show that EC-MAC outperforms the other two protocols in terms of the packet delivery ratio, network throughput and network lifetime under two distinct channel noise levels, especially under the bad channel condition. Meanwhile, the EC-MAC protocol does not increase the average end-to-end delay compared with IEEE 802.11 DCF.

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► We propose an energy-balanced cooperative MAC protocol in MANETs.
► The proposed protocol is based on the opportunistic relaying.
► Three new control frames are introduced in the handshake procedure.
► The proposed protocol has better performances than traditional protocols.