Impact of Virtual Collisions on the Performance of IEEE 802.11ad EDCA
M. P. R. S. Kiran · 2023
Future wireless technologies such as IEEE 802.11ad/ay are increasingly utilizing the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum for achieving high data rates. Due to the adverse channel conditions at such high frequencies, the access point (AP) and stations (STAs) utilize multiple antenna-based directional beamforming to improve the coverage. Hence, the entire coverage area around the AP is divided into virtual sectors. The multiple STAs present within a single sector of the AP contend for the channel using the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism specified in the standard. This paper investigates the performance of the IEEE 802.11ad EDCA in the presence of virtual collisions, virtual sectors, and scheduled and contention-based access periods. We propose a novel five-dimensional Markov chain-based mathematical model for accurately analyzing the throughput and channel access delay in IEEE 802.11ad EDCA. The performance analysis shows that the analytical model closely matches the simulation outcomes with less than 5% error.