An Enhanced Cooperative MAC Protocol for Hybrid PLC/Wireless Systems

Abstract In this study, the merge of a cooperative protocol with packet correction techniques at the link layer level is proposed. The resulting protocol, named Enhanced Cooperative Medium Access Control protocol (EHCMAC), can improve data communication reliability in-home and broadband hybrid power line communication/wireless systems. More specifically, after unsuccessful transmissions, the proposed protocol tries to correct corrupted packets, at the link layer before performing the retransmission request. In case this correction fails, the relay availability for retransmitting packets is exploited and, when the relay assistance is not enough to ensure successful retransmission, the EHCMAC performs a second packet correction attempt at the link layer. The effectiveness of the EHCMAC protocol is supported by performance analyses of in-home broadband PLC/wireless systems under its adoption. Overall, numerical and theoretical results show that the use of the proposed protocol is capable of remarkably reducing the need for packet retransmissions and the packet loss ratio. More specifically, as the bit error ratio at the link layer decreases, the number of retransmissions and packet losses tend to zero faster when the proposed protocol is adopted.