Performance Modeling and Analysis of a Class of ARQ Protocols in Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

This paper models and analyzes the performances of a class of ARQ (automatic repeat request) protocols in a multi-hop wireless data network. The performance metric here is the number of transmissions required for successful delivery of a packet over a multi-hop path. By using a discrete-time Markov model, the distribution for the total required number of transmissions is modeled as phase type distribution. The effects of different network parameters-such as packet error rate in each hop, maximum number of allowable retransmissions at each hop and retransmission probability at each hop-on the required total number of transmissions are investigated. The novelty of this model is that the probability mass function (pmf) for the number of transmissions required for successful end-to-end delivery of a packet can be easily obtained under different hop-level error control policies. Using the pmf, the tradeoff between transmission energy and percentage of data delivery (i.e., reliability) in a multi-hop path can be analyzed. The analytical model is validated by simulations. While the proposed analytical framework is general enough to capture the impact of any MAC (medium access control) mechanism at each hop, we specifically present typical performance results under IEEE 802.11 DCF (distributed coordination function) MAC