Dynamic multi-user access scheme for IEEE 802.11 WLAN channels

New PHY and MAC layer enhancements have been introduced in different IEEE 802.11 WLAN standards. These improvements have given birth to a wide range of bandwidth channels (up to 160MHz) and very high transmission data rates (> 1Gbps) to keep up with current and up-coming multimedia applications. The major reason for the inefficiency of different WLANs is that the current MAC layer randomly allocates the entire channel to only one user as a single resource. Thus, one way to significantly improve WLAN performance is to effectively reduce the channel width and create different sized sub-channels. Based on the user´s channel conditions and QoS requirements, the PHY layer resources can be dynamically allocated to several users at the same time. In this paper, we present a novel dynamic sub-channels access approach, titled DMU-Access¹, with new features suitable for the forthcoming large bandwidth WLAN products. We shall evaluate its performance compared to state-of-the-art systems, using the simulator NS-3 under a variety of network conditions. Our experiments will then demonstrate that our scheme enhances IEEE 802.11 devices´ performance with a much higher degree of throughput.