Medium access control for collaborative transmit beamforming in wireless networks

A new medium access control (MAC) scheme to enable collaborative transmit beamforming in IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks is proposed. The proposed scheme allows information sharing and simultaneous transmission in collaborative transmit beamforming, and is compatible with the existing distributed coordination function protocol. Performance comparisons with multi-hop and direct communications of the IEEE 802.11g wireless standard employing carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance MAC are made. Results show that the proposed approach provides better throughput when greater distances or more hops are needed to complete communications, especially in a noisy environment.