IEEE802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are becoming more and more pervasive due to their simple channel access mechanism, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA), but this mechanism provides all nodes including Access Point and other Stations with the same channel access probability. This characteristic does not suit the infrastructure mode which has so many downlink flows to be transmitted at the Access Point that congestion at the Access Point is more likely to occur. To resolve this asymmetry traffic problem, we develop an Optimal Contention Window Adjustment method assuming the condition of erroneous channels over WLANs. This method can be easily implemented and is compatible with the original CSMA/CA mechanism. It holds the ratio of downlink and uplink flows and at the same time achieves the maximum saturation throughput in the WLANs. We use the Markov Chain analytical model to analyze its performance and validate it through the simulations.

The medium access control (MAC) protocol is the main determiner of the system throughput in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The MAC technique of the IEEE 802.11 protocol is called Distributed Coordination Function (DCF). DCF is based on a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) scheme with binary slotted exponential backoff. Each station generates a random backoff interval before transmitting a packet to minimize the probability of collision with packets being transmitted by other stations. However, when the number of stations increases, the system throughput decreases. This paper proposes a new backoff algorithm that uses finish tags. The proposed algorithm uses the finish tag of each station to control the backoff intervals so as to improve system throughput. The finish tag is updated when a packet reaches the front of its flow, and it is attached to the packet just prior to transmission. When a station receives packets with older finish tags, its backoff time interval is increased. For this reason, the more the stations there are, the larger the backoff time becomes. Simulations confirm that the proposal improves system throughput of a IEEE 802.11 network under saturation conditions.

In this letter, we propose an enhanced gentle distributed coordination function (GDCF), which is a simple and effective collision resolution mechanism, to improve the performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF. We compare performance of the enhanced GDCF with that of the legacy DCF and the conventional GDCF via analysis and simulations. The enhanced GDCF introduces a new counter to check the number of consecutively successful transmissions, and the maximum permitted values of the counter differ for different backoff stages. The proposed GDCF is shown to have performance superior to that of the conventional GDCF for various combinations of contending stations and frame length.

In this paper, a refined analytic model is presented for the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function (DCF) in a time-varying channel environment. In the proposed model, the channel is modelled using a finite-state Markov (FSM) chain. The saturation throughput and average packet delay are analyzed from the proposed model. It is shown using OPNETTM and UltraSANTM simulations that the proposed model accurately predicts the performance of the IEEE 802.11 DCF.