PC-CTS: A Power-Controlled-CTS MAC Scheme to Improve Spatial Reuse in Wireless Mesh Networks

Spatial reuse is important in wireless mesh networks to allow multiple transmissions to occur simultaneously without interfering with each other. The design of IEEE 802.11 (a/b/g) MAC scheme does not optimally reuse space and may result in low network throughputs. This paper proposes PC-CTS, which is a power-controlled-CTS MAC scheme, to improve spatial reuse in wireless mesh networks. PC-CTS is simple and easy to implement. Our simulation results show that, even with some extra cost for making it more robust against noise, fading, and multiple interferences, on average it still outperforms IEEE 802.11 by a factor of 2 under more realistic random traffic patterns.