Power Interference Modeling for CSMA/CA based Networks using Directional Antenna

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved interference metric for CSMA/CA wireless networks with directional antennas, aiding in understanding and reducing interference to enhance network throughput.

Contribution

It proposes an enhanced Attacking Case metric that accounts for directional antennas and multiple power schemes, improving interference quantification in wireless networks.

Findings

The improved metric effectively quantifies interference in directional antenna networks.

Reducing the Attacking Case correlates with increased network throughput.

Strategies like directional antennas and power control can mitigate interference.

Abstract

In IEEE 802.11 based wireless networks adding more access points does not always guarantee an increase of network capacity. In some cases, additional access points may contribute to degrade the aggregated network throughput as more interference is introduced. This paper characterizes the power interference in CSMA/CA based networks consisting of nodes using directional antenna. The severity of the interference is quantized via an improved form of the Attacking Case metric as the original form of this metric was developed for nodes using omnidirectional antenna. The proposed metric is attractive because it considers nodes using directional or omnidirectional antenna, and it enables the quantization of interference in wireless networks using multiple transmission power schemes. The improved Attacking Case metric is useful to study the aggregated throughput of IEEE 802.11 based networks; reducing Attacking Case probably results in an increase of aggregated throughput. This reduction can be implemented using strategies such as directional antenna, transmit power control, or both.