A MIMO-aware threaded topology transparent multiple access(MIMO-T-TTMA) protocol is proposed for MIMO link ad hoc networks.MIMO-T-TTMA utilizes the protocol threading technique and combines a time spread multiple access(TSMA) protocol and a time division multiple access(TDMA) protocol in time-sharing mode.In MIMO-T-TTMA

each node in the networks is assigned a few slots.In each of its assigned slot

node determines the number of data streams to be transmitted by exchanging request to send/clear to send(RTS/CTS) packets.While the exchange of RTS/CTS fails or the slot is a non-assigned slot

the node also transmits one stream according to some probability in order to improve the throughput.To evaluate the performance

the throughput of MIMO-T-TTMA is deduced by theoretical analysis.Numerical results show that

compared with existing protocols

MIMO-T-TTMA has higher throughput when node degree is relatively large

moreover

the throughput is more stable with the changes of node degree

therefore

MIMO-T-TTMA applies to the ad hoc networks whose topologies vary significantly.