Throughput Modeling of Differentiation Schemes for IEEE 802.11e MAC Protocol

Most recent analyses on IEEE802.11e quality of service (QoS)-aware enhanced distributed coordination function (EDCA) require a large degree of complexity, making it difficult to apply them to a wide range of parameter settings for the evaluation of service differentiation mechanisms supported in EDCA, including the Contention Window (CW) and Arbitration Inter-Frame Space (AIFS) mechanisms. In this paper, we propose an improved analytical model to analyze the throughput of EDCA with AIFS and CW differentiation schemes. The model is simplified by decomposing the problem into two easily solved Markov chains that can jointly be solved by numerical method. We present simulation and analytical results over a broad range of system parameters to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed model. The model is simple to implement and can be applied to general configuration circumstances for the evaluation of EDCA. The results are valuable to facilitate proper design of parameters in 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access for the QoS support required by specific applications.