STUDY OF ANALYTICAL MODELAND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF IEEE 802.211 WIRELESS LAN USING NS-2

Abstract

The IEEE has standardized the 802.11 protocol for Wireless Local Area Networks. The primary medium access control (MAC) technique of 802.11 is called distributed coordination function (DCF). DCF is a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme with binary slotted exponential back off. Here, a simple, but accurate, analytical model to compute the 802.11 DCF throughput has been studied, in the assumption of finite number of terminals and ideal channel conditions. The proposed analysis applies to the packet transmission scheme employed by DCF, namely, the RTS/CTS access mechanisms. By means of the proposed model, in this dissertation we provide an extensive throughput performance evaluation of RTS/CTS access mechanisms of the 802.11 protocol using ns-2 simulator. The study of the QoS enhancements to the IEEE 802.11 standard, named IEEE 802.11e, currently under specification has also been discussed. Both the Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function (EDCF) and Hybrid Coordination Function (HCF) modes of Medium Access Control (MAC) operation are described.