A queuing theoretic model for IEEE 802.11 DCF using RTS/CTS

An M/MMG1/1/K queuing model is developed for the analysis of IEEE 802.11 DCF using RTS/CTS. Results are based on arbitrary contention conditions, namely, collision probabilities, transmission probabilities and contention window sizes that vary arbitrarily among nodes contending for channel access. This is fundamentally different from the earlier works. Results are presented for the fully-connected case and validated via simulation with statistical analysis. The main contributions are the analysis of DCF and the foundation for the analysis of multi-hop scenarios. A key element of the model is the effective reduction of the normally encountered complexity by effectively restoring the independence between service times and packet inter-arrivals.