Regarding IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs), many researchers are focusing on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)-based rate adaptation schemes, because these schemes have the advantage of accurately selecting transmission rates that suit the channel. However, even SNR-based rate adaptation schemes work poorly in a rapidly varying channel environment. If a transmitter cannot receive accurate rate information due to fast channel fading, it encounters continuous channel errors, because the cycle of rate adaptation and rate information feedback breaks. A well-designed request-to-send/clear-to-send (RTS/CTS) frame exchange policy that accurately reflects the network situation is an indispensable element for enhancing the performance of SNR-based rate adaptation schemes. In this paper, a novel rate adaptation scheme called adaptive RTS/CTS-exchange and rate prediction (ARRP) is proposed, which adapts the transmission rate efficiently for variable network situations, including rapidly varying channels. ARRP selects a transmission rate by predicting the SNR of the data frame to transmit when the channel condition becomes worse. Accordingly, ARRP prevents continuous channel errors through a pre-emptive transmission rate adjustment. Moreover, ARRP utilizes an efficient RTS/CTS frame exchange algorithm that considers the number of contending stations and the current transmission rate of data frames, which drastically reduces both frame collisions and RTS/CTS-exchange overhead simultaneously. Simulation results show that ARRP achieves better performance than other rate adaptation schemes.

In densely deployed wireless local area network (WLAN) environments, the arbitrary deployment of WLAN access points (APs) can cause serious cell overlaps among APs. In such situations, the ability to realize adaptable coverage using transmission power control (TPC) is effective for improving the area spectral efficiency. Meanwhile, it should be guaranteed that no coverage holes occur and that connectivity between APs and wireless stations (STAs) is maintained. In this paper, the self-organization of coverage domains of APs using TPC is proposed. The proposed technique reduces the incidence of coverage overlaps without generating area coverage holes. To detect coverage holes, STAs and/or APs are used as sensors that inform each AP of whether or not the points at which they exist are covered by the APs. However, there is a problem with this approach in that when the density of STAs is not sufficiently large, the occurrence of area coverage holes is inevitable because the points at which the sensors do not exist are not guaranteed to be covered by APs. This paper overcomes the problem by focusing APs that belong to network's outer boundary (boundary APs) and prohibiting the APs from operating at low transmission power levels, the idea being that the coverage domains of such APs always include the region covered by only those APs. The boundary APs are determined by performing Delaunay triangulation of the set of points at which all APs exist. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed TPC scheme in terms of its ability to reduce the total overlap area while avoiding the occurrence of area coverage holes.

The channel characteristics of IEEE 802.11 WLAN vary with time and this can affect packet transmission performance. For achieving robust and efficient transmission, the transmission rate is controlled by exploiting the multi-rate capability of the IEEE 802.11 physical layer (PHY) to respond to the time-varying channel condition. In this paper, we propose a novel rate adaptation scheme, called RA-MCE, in which the transmitter estimates channel quality in the MAC layer to enhance throughput performance without the need to use the RTS-CTS mechanism nor to modify the IEEE 802.11 standard. RA-MCE adaptively controls the transmission rate according to the estimated channel quality by the MAC layer channel quality estimator (MCE) that uses only local MAC layer measurements. Through extensive simulations, we validate the accuracy of MCE and evaluate the performance of RA-MCE to show that it achieves higher throughput performance than other rate adaptation schemes under various circumstances.

This letter proposes a novel TPC scheme that increases the energy efficiency of IEEE 802.11 WLAN users. It can determine whether to access the channel and with what level of transmit power given the current channel condition by comparing the expected energy efficiency to an adaptive threshold.

Cognitive Radio (CR) is expected to bring about a more flexible wireless communication environment by the efficient utilization of spectrum resources. In this paper, a CR coexisting with IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) is proposed. In the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) access scheme in IEEE 802.11 WLAN, a station (STA) transmits a data frame by executing a random backoff procedure after Distributed Inter Frame Space (DIFS) period, and the destination STA of the data frame responds with Ack frame to the source STA after Short Inter Frame Space (SIFS) period. After the Ack frame is transmitted, the same procedures are repeated. The proposed CR terminal recognizes the DIFS period and the SIFS period, and then it transmits CR signals during these periods with the transmission power that does not affect the IEEE 802.11 WLAN protocol. Thus, the proposed CR terminals recognize the periods during which IEEE 802.11 STAs do not transmit any frames and they use the periods to transmit CR signals. In this paper, IEEE 802.11 WLAN STA that has the capability for the proposed CR technique in addition to the normal 802.11 WLAN capability is considered and the improved average throughputs by the CR communications are evaluated in the computer simulation, and then the effectiveness of the proposed method is clarified.