A load statistics-based frequency-hopping multiple access protocol with QOS guarantee

In order to satisfy the needs of flexible and invulnerability in aeronautical Ad hoc networks, statistic priority-based multiple access (SPMA) was applied to the tactical target network technology (TTNT) system, which is the latest generation of US military tactical data links. SPMA can provide different access rates and channel resources for different priority traffic. However, if the traffic is busy, low-priority traffic is likely to result in the problem of starvation. This paper proposes a load statistic-based frequency hopping multiple access protocol (LSMA) to solve the starvation problem of low-priority traffic in SPMA and also ensure the network throughput and packet loss rate. The protocol first schedules multiple priority queues. Then according to the statistical results of the physical layer network load, a rate adaption algorithm is designed to control the sending rate of each node in the network. Simulation results show that LSMA can not only solve the starvation problem of low-priority traffic in SPMA, but also provide weighted throughput for every priority traffic. And the network load under this protocol is more stable. When the throughput under high traffic volume in LSMA is same to that in SPMA, packet loss rate dropped from 27% to 10%.