The impact of RTS/CTS on performance of wireless multihop ad hoc networks using IEEE 802.11 protocol

There has been a growing interest in multihop wireless ad hoc networks in recent years. Previous studies have shown that, when using the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol in a wireless ad hoc network, the maximum end-to-end good put is achieved when all nodes are within transmission range of each other. The main reason is that the channel spatial reuse factor gained from the multihop network does not match the increase in additional transmission hops that a packet needs to travel in a multihop network. For a multihop network, its MAC frame delivery capacity is approximately fixed at a value dependent on its spatial reuse factor. If the offered load increases, less capacity will be spent on delivering packets that eventually reach their destinations and hence resulting in lower end-to-end goodput. The throughput and the mean frame delay will be varied for different RTS/CTS threshold values and the numbers of station. We will show that the system throughput of the multihop network is in general lower than that of a single-hop network whether the RTS/CTS mechanism is used or not.