Queueing analysis of DCHF and token-passing protocols with varying turnaround time

Wireless networks are generally characterized by a medium shared among a group of users. This makes an appropriate media access control (MAC) protocol essential for efficient channel utilization. Wireless MAC protocols show significant performance degradation in some challenging networks (e.g., military HF radio) that are characterized by long link-layer turnaround times, and most of the recent research does not address this problem. This paper develops queueing models for two functional categories of wireless MAC protocols; DCHF, a contention-based MAC protocol and token-passing, a contention-free MAC protocol, and explores their statistical performance for varying link-layer turnaround times under varying Poisson loads. Simulation models for these protocols have been developed to substantiate the statistical analysis.