A Packet Delay Analysis of IEEE 802.11 Dcf in Single-Hop Ad Hoc Networks<br /> DOI: 10.14209/jcis.2004.10

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical model to compute the average service time and jitter experienced by a data packet when transmitted in a saturated IEEE 802.11 ad hoc network. In contrast to traditional work in the literature, in which a distribution is usually _tted or assumed, we use a bottom-up approach and build the _rst two moments of the service time based on the IEEE 802.11 DCF binary exponential backoff algorithm and the events underneath its operation. Our model is general enough to be applied to any type of IEEE 802.11 wireless ad hoc network where the channel state probabilities driving a node's backoff operation are known. We apply our model to saturated single-hop ad hoc networks under ideal channel conditions. We validate our model through extensive simulations and conduct a performance evaluation of a node's average service time and jitter for both direct sequence and frequency-hopping spread spectrum physical layers as speci_ed by the IEEE 802.11 b standard.