Performance Analysis of Backoff Algorithm in Wireless LANs with Prioritized Messages

무선랜 환경에서 우선순위를 고려한 백오프 알고리듬 성능분석

Distributed coordination function(DCF) is the primary random access mechanism of IEEE 802.11, which is the basic protocol of wireless LAN based on the CSMA/CA protocol. It enables fast installation with minimal management and maintenance costs and is a very robust protocol for the best effort service in wireless medium. The current DCF, however, is known to be unsuitable for real-time applications such as voice message transmission. In this paper, we focus on the performance issues of IEEE 802.11 which accommodate the prioritized messages. Existing results use the initial window size and backoff window-increasing factor as tools to handle the priority of the messages. Instead, we introduce a novel scheme which chooses the backoff timer with arbitrary probabilities. By this, one can greatly reduce the backoff delay of the lower priority messages without degrading the performance of higher priority.