A Novel User-data Switching Mechanism in MAC Layer for wireless networks

For the influence of Internet, 802.11 lacks the definition over the MAC (medium access control) layer, user-data are switched via upper protocols and the switching point is located in the network layer. This redundant architecture has shortcomings on efficiency and is not propitious to guarantee QoS (quality of service). In this paper, we propose a novel user-data switching mechanism in the lower layer, viz. the MAC layer in 802.11. This mechanism modifies the traditional finite state machine, the header format of user-data and the communication primitives of MAC layer to achieve the goal of reducing user-data plane. Our simulations show this user-data mechanism can better the relay efficiency and improve the QoS.