Adaptive Carrier-Sensing for Throughput Improvement in IEEE 802.11 Networks

As a Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) network, the performance of IEEE 802.11 networks highly depends on the accuracy of the carrier sensing procedure. However, conventional carrier sensing approaches suffer from the well known hidden and exposed node problems, adversely affecting aggregate throughput of the IEEE 802.11 networks. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme through which each station can adaptively select its Carrier Sense Threshold (CST) in order to mitigate the hidden/exposed node problems. The basic idea behind our approach is for the Access Point (AP) to periodically transmit a Busy/Idle (BI) signal to all the stations. Individual stations then use the BI signal from the AP together with their own local BI signal in order to adjust their CST. We use NS-2 simulations to show that our approach can enhance the aggregate throughput by as much as 50%.