Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11 DCF networks

This paper presents an analytical saturation throughput model of IEEE 802.11 DCF (distributed coordination function) with basic access in ad hoc mode. The model takes into account freezing of the backoff timer when a station senses busy channel. It is shown that taking into account this feature of DCF is important in modeling saturation throughput by yielding more accurate and realistic results than models known from literature. The proposed analytical model also takes into account the effect of transmission errors. All essential features of the proposed analytical approach are illustrated with numerical results. The presentation of the model is proceeded by an overview of approaches to IEEE 802.11 network performance evaluation presented in the literature.