On the Behavior of the Distributed Coordination Function of IEEE 802.11 with Multirate Capability under General Transmission Conditions

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive Markovian model for IEEE 802.11's Distributed Coordination Function with multirate capabilities, analyzing its throughput under various traffic and channel conditions, validated by simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-dimensional Markov model that accounts for channel errors and multirate transmission, providing a detailed throughput analysis for IEEE 802.11 in diverse conditions.

Findings

Throughput is a linear combination of payload size and packet rates.

Model accurately predicts behavior under saturated and non-saturated traffic.

Simulation results closely match theoretical analysis.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is threefold. First, it presents a multi-dimensional Markovian state transition model characterizing the behavior of the IEEE 802.11 protocol at the Medium Access Control layer which accounts for packet transmission failures due to channel errors modeling both saturated and non-saturated traffic conditions. Second, it provides a throughput analysis of the IEEE 802.11 protocol at the data link layer in both saturated and non-saturated traffic conditions taking into account the impact of both the physical propagation channel and multirate transmission in Rayleigh fading environment. The general traffic model assumed is M/M/1/K. Finally, it shows that the behavior of the throughput in non-saturated traffic conditions is a linear combination of two system parameters; the payload size and the packet rates, $\lambda^{(s)}$, of each contending station. The validity interval of the proposed model is also derived. Simulation results closely match the theoretical derivations, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed models.