SIR-based multiple access with cascade yielding avoidance for distributed device-to-device communications

As the demands for efficient distributed device-to-device (D2D) communications increase, signal-to-interference ratio (SIR)-based multiple access (SBMA) technique has been proposed. By enabling SIR-aware multiple access control in distributed D2D communication, SBMA can improve utilization of the shared wireless medium in comparison with the conventional carrier sense multiple access technique. However, SBMA suffers from the cascade yielding problem which adversely affects the performance gain expected from SBMA. Cascade yielding is caused due to the limited knowledge available to each device about the medium access decisions of the neighboring devices. In order to reduce this problem, this paper enhances SBMA by taking into account the yielding relationships between neighboring devices during medium access decisions. The yielding relationships enable each device to more precisely estimate the SIRs and hence more effectively determine medium accessibility. Our simulation results show that the enhanced SBMA can allow more devices to simultaneously access the shared medium and improve the overall performance of D2D communications.