  In the last years, the advancements in signal processing and integrated
circuits technology allowed several research groups to develop working
prototypes of in-band full-duplex wireless systems. The introduction of such a
revolutionary concept is promising in terms of increasing network performance,
but at the same time poses several new challenges, especially at the MAC layer.
Consequently, innovative channel access strategies are needed to exploit the
opportunities provided by full-duplex while dealing with the increased
complexity derived from its adoption. In this direction, this paper proposes
RTS/CTS in the Frequency Domain (RCFD), a MAC layer scheme for full-duplex ad
hoc wireless networks, based on the idea of time-frequency channel contention.
According to this approach, different OFDM subcarriers are used to coordinate
how nodes access the shared medium. The proposed scheme leads to efficient
transmission scheduling with the result of avoiding collisions and exploiting
full-duplex opportunities. The considerable performance improvements with
respect to standard and state-of-the-art MAC protocols for wireless networks
are highlighted through both theoretical analysis and network simulations.
