Bringing Anarchy to TDMA for a Versatile, Fully-Distributed Medium Access Control
Reins-MAC is a TDMA-based MAC. While common TDMA solutions require each node to rigidly follow an agreed upon communication schedule, in Reins-MAC each individual defines its own slot inside the overall frame, in a fully-decentralized fashion. Despite the common belief that such dynamic communication scheduling is infeasible, Reins-MAC both adapts to the current network topology, and allows each node to change the size and position of its slot. Reins-MAC achieves the aforementioned flexibility and anarchy by removing one fundamental parameter of TDMA solutions: the network-wide slot size constant. By adapting the slot size at each node to match the local availability, Reins-MAC achieves tremendous gains in bandwidth utilization.
Reins-MAC builds on the literature of Pulse Coupled Oscillators, which is inspired by firefly behavior, providing a framework for straightforwardly describing its functioning, as detailed in the algorithm section. The effectiveness of the proposed solution has been investigated through a prototype implementation we developped on top of TinyOS, working on TelosB hardware platform.
For development informations, access the Reins project summary page.