Multipacket Reception in Wireless Local Area Networks

The conventional MAC (Medium Access Control) protocols assume that only one packet can be received at a given time. However, with the advent of sophisticated signal processing and antenna array techniques, it is possible to achieve multipacket reception (MPR) in the physical layer (PHY). In this paper, we propose a PHY methodology and the corresponding MAC protocol for MPR in wireless local area networks (WLANs). The proposed MAC protocol closely follows the 802.11 DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) scheme and enables MPR in a distributed manner. For the proposed MPR system, a closed-form expression of the average throughput is derived. Based on the expression, an optimal transmission probability that maximizes the throughput can be attained. In addition, two enhancement schemes are presented to further improve the performance of the MPR protocol. Numerical results show that the proposed MPR system can considerably increase the spectrum efficiency compared to the WLANs with conventional collision models.