Research on the lossless contention MAC protocol and the performance of an ultraviolet communication network.

Ultraviolet (UV) communication has been the topic of extensive recent research due to its non-line-of-sight (NLOS) communication, anti-interference, and high confidentiality. Given the lack of the UV Media Access Control (MAC) protocol, this paper proposes a UV lossless contention MAC (UVLLC-MAC) protocol creatively. This MAC protocol is based on the superposition logic of UV power, which effectively reduces the collision loss of multi-node contention access. The basic working mechanism and protocol flow are given in detail, and the network performance is simulated and analyzed mathematically based on a four-node UV network. Comparing with the slotted ALOHA protocol, the simulation results indicate that the network has a higher throughput and lower delay under the protocol. The practical networking of four communication terminals is designed and implemented, and the effectiveness of the new UVLLC-MAC protocol is fully verified.