Design of a collision-free backoff method to improve the IEEE 802.11 DCF
Xiaoying Lei, Seung Hyong Rhee · 2016
The IEEE 802.11 DCF (distributed coordination function) employs a random backoff method for collision avoidance. The random backoff approach, however, cannot eliminate collisions completely: i.e., a number of stations may randomly select a same BC(backoff counter) and access the channel simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a collision-free backoff method that enables the stations to reserve their own BCs using previously delivered control packets. Also those stations which have no control packets to deliver can reuse the BCs released by other stations. In that way, collisions due to the random backoff can be completely avoided. Through extensive simulations, we prove that our proposed scheme outperforms 802.11 DCF in both throughput and medium access delay.