Energy efficient smart-relay-based cooperative MAC for wireless networks

An enormous number of papers investigated wireless cooperative networks over the last few years. Almost all have shown that cooperative transmission improves network performance significantly. However, none of these studies have considered the hidden and exposed terminal problems which appear due to the cooperative mechanisms of relay selection and transmission processes. The hidden terminal problems increase collisions and the exposed terminal problems increase bandwidth wastage, degrading the expected performance of cooperative networks. This paper addresses these problems of traditional wireless cooperative networks. We also propose a protocol called smart-relay-based- cooperative (SRcoop) MAC to optimally reduce the impacts of hidden and exposed terminal problems. We also illustrate an efficient relay selection mechanism that uses a back-up relay to increase transmission reliability. Our innovative model significantly improves the network throughput, end-to-end delay and energy efficiency over traditional cooperative MAC, 2rcMAC, LC-MAC, C-ARQ and Adere et al. protocols.