Mobile ad hoc network with dynamic TDMA slot assignments and related methods

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) comprising:

• a plurality of mobile nodes each comprising a wireless transceiver and a controller cooperating therewith and configured to
• operate in a geographic area using a time division multiple access (TDMA) protocol and based upon a TDMA epoch including TDMA time slots, and
• dynamically divide into a plurality of first type mobile nodes exchanging isochronous communication, and a plurality of second type mobile nodes based upon a current topologic density in the topologic area relative to a topological density threshold
• so that each first type mobile node has a periodic TDMA time slot allocated in the TDMA epoch, and
• so that each second type mobile node contends for contention interval TDMA time slots in the TDMA epoch,
• has at least one first type mobile node within one hop,
• periodically detects when the contention interval TDMA time slots are being used, and
• selectively changes a rate of detecting based upon a number of adjacent second type mobile nodes.