MARCH: a medium access control protocol for multihop wireless ad hoc networks

The multiple access with reduced handshake (MARCH) protocol utilizes the broadcast characteristics of an omnidirectional antenna to reduce the number of control messages required to transmit a data packet in multihop ad hoc networks. In MARCH, the RTS-CTS handshake is used only by the first hop of a route to forward data packets while for the rest it utilizes a new CTS-only handshake. Since fewer control packets are transmitted, the probability of packet collision is reduced and therefore the channel throughput is increased. Simulation results demonstrate that MARCH outperforms MAC protocols that employ only the RTS-CTS handshake.