Hybrid TDMA with heuristic traffic shaping: An efficient bandwidth allocation approach for heavy loaded LANs

Hybrid TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) with heuristic traffic shaping (HyTDMA/HTS) is a new collisionless MAC protocol for efficiently managing the traffic of a heavy loaded broadcast LAN. The protocol employs techniques that enable it to perform better than both fixed assignment protocols like TDMA as well as dynamic bandwidth allocation protocols like LTDMA. HyTDMA/HTS can smoothly operate in diverse traffic environments of very high loads and bursty traffic, and it can still maintain maximum shared medium utilization while maintaining low packet delay times. Built into the protocol is also a simple yet effective heuristic mechanism that regulates the traffic of hosts flooding the network with an excessive number of packets larger than the average.