Ant Based Adaptive Directional Monitoring MAC Protocol Using Smart Antennas in MANET

In Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MAC), the existing MAC protocol based on the short busy advertisement is not an efficient method for data fragmentation. In addition, the data-fragment length adjustment according to the network environments is still an issue. In order to overcome this issue, in this article, the authors propose to design an Adaptive Directional Monitoring MAC (ADM-MAC) protocol for smart Antennas using Ant colony optimization (ACO) technique. In this technique, the network density and traffic intensity information is estimated using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique and then passed on to the MAC protocol. Then data fragment transmission is performed by adaptively adjusting the directional monitoring period based on the packet size. By simulation results, the authors show that the proposed technique reduces the delay, packet drop due to collision and increases the throughput and packet delivery ratio.