A New Paradigm of NAV Alteration to Overcome Masked Node Problem in 802.11 MAC Based MANETs

In a Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) one essential issue is to resolve potential contention and collision between mobile hosts in order to utilize the radio spectrum efficiently on using the medium. The inefficiency is caused by various ways: the hidden node problem, the exposed node problem, the blocked node problem, and the masked node problem occurring in such networks. These four problems can lead to sudden increase of control packets and hence poor throughput performance. To address these problems in general and masked node problem in particular, the authors propose a new paradigm for the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol in which a new type of reinforcement by way of NAV Alteration is incorporated in the existing RTS-CTS mechanism.