A Novel Medium Access Control Algorithm for Ad Hoc Networks Based on Ising Model

Abstract

Medium Access Control (MAC) scheduling in ad hoc networks is a challenging task due to the trade-offs between fairness, delay and throughput. In this work, we propose a distributed link scheduling algorithm based on the Ising Model from statistical mechanics, by associating a novel Hamiltonian measure with the network such that its optimization yields a feasible schedule. This work overcomes the shortcomings of previous Ising Model based algorithms by incorporating queuing and servicing dynamics as well as fairness measures for improving aggregate throughput and network latency. Our simulations show considerable improvement in performance compared to existing benchmarks over a variety of traffic arrival patterns and network topologies.