Abstract. Ultra Wide Band (UWB)impulse radio is a promising technology for future short-range, low-power, low cost and high data ratead hoc networks.The technology isbeing explored in a number of research projects. While most UWB research for this class of networksisconcentrating on the physicall ayer, little researchh as been published on link layer protocols which exploit the specifics of UWB impulse r adio. In t his paper, w e focus on t he selforganization concept and the peculiarities of UWB technology from aphysical and a link layer point of view. Anovel self-organizing link layerprotocol based on time hopping spread spectrum is proposed in thispaper.This protocol promisest obean efficient and collision-free mechanism t hat enables the devices tod iscover neighbornodes and arrange the access to communication resources shared among the nodes. The adjustable parameters of the protocol enable the network to adapt to a dynamic environment.
1IntroductionArange of services supporting future mobile applications are expected to require high data rates, high communicationquality and efficient network access. A case in point is mobile interactive gaming, where fast transmission of image and voice in dynamic environments is a prerequisite.Wireless networks that meet these expectations will have a hybrid character, consisting mainly of ad hoc networks with occasional access to infrastructures, in order to reachremote nodes or infrastructure-based servers. They will have tooperate completely automatically without t he interventiono f s ystem administrators, and therefore will haveto be self-organizing. Self-organization in this context implies the automatic finding of neighbor nodes, the creation of connections, the scheduling of transmissions and the determining of routes. This should be performed in a distributed manner sothat all nodes in t he network are able t o exchange information and reconfigure the network when nodes join or leave, or when radio linksare broken or established.A promising but, because of implementation difficulties, notw ell explored radio technology is UWB impulse radio. This technology has a lot of potentialf or high-* This researchi spart of the AIRLINK project funded by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs under the Freeband Impulse Program.