Revising buffering in multihop CSMA/CA wireless networks

We look at a multihop wireless path with relay nodes running some CSMA/CA protocol. We show that current buffering schemes with a drop-tail policy lead to low throughput, independently of any other MAC layer issues. We propose a simple alternative buffering policy, where relay nodes are essentially bufferless. We show that even without buffering, the network can be stabilized in a regime where the link utilization is optimal, through very simple amendments to the MAC layer. Furthermore, the network operation stays self-organized and resilient to mild interference and transmission failures. Exploiting a packet/hole duality property of the system, we suggest extensions for handling bidirectional traffic along the path, and more general mesh network configurations.