Delay analysis of IEEE 802.11 PCF MAC based wireless networks

In this paper, we present an analytic model for evaluating the queueing delays at nodes using the IEEE 802.11 point coordination function (PCF) MAC for real time, delay sensitive traffic. Our work extends existing models by accounting for the power management mode where nodes may switch to the power save mode in order to conserve energy. We develop a queueing model to obtain closed form expressions for the expected delay at each node which accounts for arbitrary packet sizes, polling rates, channel rates and the order in which nodes are polled. Our analytical results are verified through simulations.