Analysis of TDMA based MAC Protocols with Cooperative Diversity

MAC protocol is usually contention based or reservation based. Whereas contention based protocols are easily implementable, they consumes a lot of energy and have a higher ratio of delay time and lesser throughput. On the other hand reservation based protocols like TDMA and CDMA do not need to contend the channel beforehand because all users get their turns for channel usage. Hence, while contention based protocols waste energy, reservation based protocols are energy efficient and help in increasing battery life of the devices. Furthermore, cooperative diversity is used along with MAC protocols to lessen fading. In this regard C-TDMA is a very popular protocol. But the authors form a very redundant channel. This paper tries to nullify the paper’s claim; to form a good cooperative diversity MAC protocol, many number of helper (relay) nodes need to be used. The paper further proves that only a single relay node is necessary for forming a good cooperative MAC protocol. Results will prove that throughput increases and BER is also neutralized. MRC is used to deal with the direct and indirect signals in the system at the receiver. Amplify and forward has been used as the cooperative diversity technique since it is the simplest and easiest one. Overall this paper concentrates on the benefits and disadvantages of both the types very concisely and incites further research ideas.