Frame Collision Reduction Method Employing Adaptive Transmission Control for IEEE802.11 Wireless LAN System

The IEEE 802.11 distributed coordinated function (DCF) adopts carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) as its medium access control (MAC) protocol. In a wireless local area network (WLAN) stations (STAs) congested situation, the performance of the WLAN system is significantly degraded due to a collision between the STAs. In this paper, we propose a simple method that decreases the number of frame collisions. After a successful transmission, the proposed method refrains from transmission during certain time which is defined as post-inter-frame space (Post-IFS). This mechanism improves the system performance including the throughput characteristics and access delay by reducing the number of competing STAs. The length of the Post-IFS is a key factor in improving the system performance for the proposed method. If the access point (AP) can estimate the optimal value of the Post-IFS, collision-free operation similar to that in centralized control is performed. Even if the optimal Post-IFS is not estimated, the number of competing STAs and the collision probability are decreased. Computer simulations verify that the proposed method achieves 40% higher system throughput compared to the conventional CSMA/CA for a network with 50 STAs.