Interference Estimation in IEEE 802.11 Networks

This article describes a technique for distinguishing and quantifying medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) interference in error-prone 802.11 networks. This technique, is fully distributed, allowing each station to estimate interference individually. The estimator is based on an extended Kalman filter coupled to a mechanism for revealing abrupt changes in state. The network state is a vector of two components, representing PHY interference, expressed in terms of channel-error rate, and MAC interference. Two distinct state models are considered. When PHY interference can be assumed to be constant for all stations, network congestion is expressed by the number of competing terminals.