Analytical Framework for Examining Bistability of CSMA/CA-Based Wireless Local Area Networks
Shigeo Shioda · 2023
It is known that a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA)-based wireless local area network (WLAN) may exhibit bistable behavior in a scenario where wireless stations send frames at a constant rate to the access point and the total offered load provided by the wireless stations is approximately equal to the WLAN capacity. This paper proposes an analytical framework for examining such bistable behavior. In the model, frames are generated according to a stationary arrival process and are queued in the buffer inside each station. Each station sends the frames in its buffer to the access point via a common channel. The interaction between the frame queues of the stations causes an interdependence of the frame processing time among stations, which in turn causes bistable behavior of the WLAN. The bistability of WLANs analytically derived using the proposed framework is consistent with that obtained in computer simulations.