Three-Dimensional Markov Chain Model for Performance Analysis of the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function

This paper introduces an accurate analysis using three dimensional Markov chain modeling to compute the IEEE 802.11 DCF performance under heavy traffic conditions and absence of hidden terminals. The proposed model matches the real implementation of the DCF as presented in the standard through considering the impact of retry limits of control and data frames jointly on the performance of DCF mechanism. Moreover, transmission errors are added to the model as constant frame error probabilities. In addition to the throughout efficiency, this analytical analysis calculates the average packet delay, the packet drop probability and the average packet drop time for the DCF access modes, basic and RTS/CTS. We show that our proposed model is a more general model compared to the other models that are presented in the literature, which leads to more accurate performance analysis. Simulation results validate the accuracy of our analytical analysis. Moreover, we prove the generality and validate the correctness of our analysis by showing that other models appeared in literature are special cases from our proposed model. Moreover, the impact of the retry limits and the network size on the performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF is presented.