MIMO-Assisted MPR-Aware MAC Design for Asynchronous WLANs

The use of multiple-packet reception (MPR) in wireless networks is known to improve throughput especially in high-traffic conditions. The lack of synchronization among the nodes in random access systems introduces significant challenges toward the adoption of MPR in the PHY and the MAC design for systems using MPR. In this paper, we propose an asynchronous MPR method for the PHY and also design a compatible random access MAC for wireless local area networks (WLANs). Relying on space-time coding techniques, our MPR method detects multiple asynchronous packets while providing diversity and low bit error rates at the PHY layer. Extending the design of IEEE 802.11, our MPR MAC design encourages simultaneous packet transmissions and handles multiple packet receptions. Simulation results show that the throughput of a WLAN significantly improves in many scenarios of operation using our proposed PHY/MAC MPR framework.