A List-Based Medium Access Control algorithm in IEEE 802.11 wireless mesh networks

The Head-Of-Line (HOL) blocking problem is one of major reasons for degradation of the performance in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Since IEEE 802.11 MAC handles packets as the First-In, First-Out (FIFO) policy, devices having frames to transmit may stay in back-off stage for a long time due to a HOL-blocked packet. To resolve the HOL blocking problem, we propose a novel scheduling algorithm called as List-Based Medium Access Control (LBMAC). Our LBMAC algorithm improves the network performance by alleviating the HOL blocking problem and reducing the excessive back-off time. We design the LBMAC based on CSMA/CA algorithm so as to easily incorporate with IEEE 802.11 standards. Performance evaluation shows that our algorithm achieves better performance than IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol.