Efficient contention-based MAC protocol using adaptive fuzzy controlled sliding backoff interval for wireless networks

Efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol should be able to provide high throughput performance and efficient share of the medium. In this paper, a new contention-based MAC protocol based on adaptive fuzzy controlled sliding backoff interval is proposed to maximize the channel throughput and improve the fairness of random access channels. In the proposed protocol, every node that experiences packet collisions increases its sliding backoff interval (SB) range by a forward sliding factor (FSF). In case of successful transmission the node decreases its SB range by a backward sliding factor (BSF). Forward and backward sliding factors are controlled by the channel offered traffic using a fuzzy controller. Furthermore, the operation of the proposed backoff algorithm does not depend on the knowledge of the number of active nodes. A computer simulation is developed using MATLAB to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm and compare it with other backoff schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms other backoff schemes, such as binary exponential backoff (BEB) and the fast collision resolution (FCR) scheme. It provides a significant efficient fair sharing performance improvement which converges to the ideal fairness performance while providing high throughput performance.