Towards a ZigZag-decoding-enabled distributed coordination function for WLANs

In wireless networking, the hidden node problem occurs when a node is visible from a wireless access point AP, but not from other nodes communicating with AP. This leads to difficulties in media access control. This problem is one of limiting factors of transmission in Wi-Fi technology. Many solutions have been developed to overcome the problem of hidden terminals such as CSMA/CA based on RTS/CTS mechanism. However, the RTS/CTS mechanism is not a complete solution and may decrease the throughput by overloading the network. In this paper, we consider improving the performances of IEEE 802.11 by proposing a solution based on CSMA/CA and ZigZag decoding. Our aim of using ZigZag decoding is to combat the effect of both hidden terminals and collisions of simultaneous transmissions. Then, we propose a mathematical model taking into account the CSMA/CA mechanism in the MAC layer. We take into consideration also the random exponential back-off algorithm and ZigZag decoding instead of RTS/CTS as solution. Furthermore, our result is illustrated with a numerical example.