Analysis of the Channel Access Mechanism in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks

IEEE 802.11 wireless network has spread widely during the past few years. This type of network employees a carrier-sense multiple access with collision-avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme with exponential backoff procedure. In this paper, we present a performance analysis of IEEE 802.11 channel access mechanism. The analysis captures the details of the Distributed Function Coordination (DCF), such as the contention window size, inter-frame spacing, and packet exchange sequence, and obtains the throughput for such a network with multiple number of stations. The throughput is obtained when the station packet load varies. Two packet access mechanism, namely, the basic access mechanism and the RTS/CTS access mechanism are considered in the throughput analysis. Simulation results are presented to verify the analysis.