Natural hidden terminal and the performance of the wireless LANs

Abstract

If the access point (AP) and all the mobile terminals have the same coverage, there will always be terminals in the coverage area of the AP which are hidden to one another. This phenomenon is referred to as the natural hidden terminal problem. We analyze the impact of the natural hidden terminals on the throughput of a wireless LAN consisting of mobile terminals distributed around an AP. The analysis includes the effects of the difference in the coverage of the AP and the mobile terminals as well as the capture effect caused by the near-far problem.