"It's Your Turn": A Novel Channel Contention Mechanism for Improving Wi-Fi's Reliability

TL;DR

This paper introduces 'It's Your Turn' (IYT), a new contention mechanism for Wi-Fi 8 that enhances reliability by coordinating device transmissions based on neighboring activity awareness, reducing channel access delays.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel contention scheme extending DCF, improving Wi-Fi reliability through ordered access and neighbor activity awareness, validated via simulations.

Findings

IYT improves channel access delay control.

It is versatile across different topologies.

It coexists effectively with legacy devices.

Abstract

The next generation of Wi-Fi, i.e., the IEEE 802.11bn (aka Wi-Fi 8), is not only expected to increase its performance and provide extended capabilities but also aims to offer a reliable service. Given that one of the main sources of unreliability in IEEE 802.11 stems from the current distributed channel access, which is based on Listen-Before-Talk (LBT), the development of novel contention schemes gains importance for Wi-Fi 8 and beyond. In this paper, we propose a new channel contention mechanism, "It's Your Turn" (IYT), that extends the existing Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) and aims at improving the reliability of distributed LBT by providing ordered device transmissions thanks to neighboring activity awareness. Using simulation results, we show that our mechanism strives to provide reliable performance by controlling the channel access delay. We prove the versatility of IYT against different topologies, coexistence with legacy devices, and increasing network densities.