Performance Modeling and Analysis of IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol in Multihop Ad Hoc Networks

This paper proposes a novel four-dimensional Markov chain model to evaluate performance of the Request To Send/Clear To Send (RTS/CTS) scheme of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol in multihop ad hoc networks. This model considers collision probability of the RTS frame and more important that of the Data frame after a successful RTS transmission. According to the division principle, network performance parameters, e.g. saturation throughput, collision probability of RTS and Data frames, are acquired. Numerical results validate the correctness of our model.