IEEE 802.11-based one-hop broadcast communications

Abstract

In wireless one-hop broadcast communications, each node broadcasts messages to inform all neighbors within an intended communication range. Clearly, the packet transmission of the various nodes might interfere with each other due to the overlapping communication ranges. IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) provides some basic mechanisms for coordination of these transmissions. However, due to its distributed nature, DCF suffers from coordination failures, e.g., due to the very well-known hidden terminal problem. When considering realistic radio propagation phenomena to various degrees, these 'incoordination problems' can drastically increase. On the other hand, transceivers with packet capturing capability might be able to deal with some of the uncoordinated packets. In order to understand the effects of different radio propagation environments on packet level incoordination, we provide a detailed simulation study measuring six transmission success/failure categories and five performance metrics. We report quantitative results w.r.t. probability of incoordination and the effects of power-setting and packet retransmission strategies.