Performance Analysis of Contention Based Medium Access Control Protocols

Author

Sharma, Gaurav ; Ganesh, Ayalvadi ; Key, Peter

Author_Institution

D. E. Shaw & Co., New York, NY

Volume

55

Issue

4

fYear

2009

fDate

4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1665

Lastpage

1682

Abstract

This paper studies the performance of contention based medium access control (MAC) protocols. In particular, a simple and accurate technique for estimating the throughput of the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol is developed. The technique is based on a rigorous analysis of the Markov chain that corresponds to the time evolution of the back-off processes at the contending nodes. An extension of the technique is presented to handle the case where service differentiation is provided with the use of heterogeneous protocol parameters, as, for example, in IEEE 802.11e EDCA protocol. Our results provide new insights into the operation of such protocols. The techniques developed in the paper are applicable to a wide variety of contention based MAC protocols.

Keywords

DiffServ networks; Markov processes; access protocols; performance evaluation; telecommunication congestion control; wireless LAN; IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol; MAC protocol; Markov chain; contention performance analysis; heterogeneous protocol parameter; medium access control protocol; service differentiation; Access protocols; Collision avoidance; Local area networks; Media Access Protocol; Multiaccess communication; Performance analysis; Quality of service; Throughput; Wireless application protocol; Wireless sensor networks; Carrier sense multiple-access protocol with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA); IEEE 80211; IEEE 80211e; diffusion approximation; fixed point analysis; fluid limit; performance evaluation; performance of the medium access control (MAC) protocols; wireless local-area networks (WLANs);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9448

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TIT.2008.2009608

Filename

4802302