Improving performance evaluation in a IEEE 802.11 chain topologies through a deterministic setting of backoff values

Abstract

The chain networks based on the IEEE 802.11 protocol are implied in several applications. Their advantage is the robustness of protocol, but they suffer of performance decreasing due to the so-called hidden node problem. In literature some changes to the protocol have been proposed, but generally they are complex and request important modifications to the protocol structure. In this work, on the contrary, it is proposed an easily feasible 802.11 protocol change. In order to avoid collision, it is shared the channel in transmissions perfectly separated in time. Analysis and simulations, executed in chain networks composed by 4 nodes, will show how the proposed modification increases the performances of the system in terms of throughput.