A Payload-Dropping CSMA/CA Protocol for Improving Spatial Reuse of Wireless Local and Personal Area Networks

Despite being well out of the physical layer interference range, cells of CSMA/CA-based wireless networks suffer unnecessary throughput degradation when they are within the carrier sensing range. To mitigate this medium access control layer-specific interference problem, many schemes have been proposed, of which transmit power and carrier sensing threshold control schemes stand out. In this paper, we propose a scheme which not only works out on its own but also improves the performance of these two schemes: Based on a ´cell identifier´ imbedded in the header portion of all radio frames, nodes drop the payload portion of frames which number do not match that of their respective cells while their drop rates are within some tolerance limit. Using a realistic IEEE 802.11b simulator as our validation platform, we show that this scheme has some merit especially in the presence of path-loss or signal power measurement uncertainties.