Time Slot Utilization for Efficient Multi-Channel MAC Protocol in VANETs

In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), many schemes for a multi-channel media access control (MAC) protocol have been proposed to adapt to dynamically changing vehicle traffic conditions and deliver both safety and non-safety packets. One such scheme is to employ both time-division multiple access (TDMA) and carrier-sense multiple access (CSMA) schemes (called a hybrid TDMA/CSMA scheme) in the control channel (CCH) interval. The scheme can adjust the length of the TDMA period depending on traffic conditions. In this paper, we propose a modified packet transmitted in the TDMA period to reduce transmission overhead under a hybrid TDMA/CSMA multi-channel MAC protocol. Simulation results show that a MAC protocol with a modified packet supports an efficient packet delivery ratio of control packets in the CCH. In addition, we analyze the hybrid TDMA/CSMA multi-channel MAC protocol with the modified packet under saturated throughput conditions on the service channels (SCHs). The analysis results show that the number of neighbors has little effect on the establishment of the number of time slots in TDMA periods and on SCHs under saturated throughput conditions.