The media access control (MAC) protocol is a key element in the design of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) that directly affects the network performance. The backoff schemes of existing MAC protocols apply the single backoff process and therefore are not suitable for multi-class data transmission. Additionally, they cannot satisfy the delay requirements of emergency data in the case of varying number of vehicles, causing an adverse effect to the intelligent transportation system (ITS). This paper presents a priority-based adaptive backoff scheme that can enhance the binary exponential backoff (BEB) algorithm as well as the polynomial backoff (QB) algorithm. This system distinguishes priority data with different delay requirements first and designs different backoff schemes for each type of data later. The two-dimensional Markov Chain is used to analyze the backoff scheme and determine the expressions for throughput and delay. The simulation results show that the backoff scheme provided by this paper can reduce the average data delay and regulate each kind of data delay adaptively, according to the varying number of vehicles and different delay requirements.
Performance evaluation of neighbor-awareness at the Media Access Control (MAC) layer for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs)
