On the Distributed Construction of a Collision-Free Schedule in WLANs

Jaume Barcelo; Azadeh Faridi; Boris Bellalta; Gabriel Martorell; David Malone

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arXiv · 1311.0787

On the Distributed Construction of a Collision-Free Schedule in WLANs

Jaume Barcelo·Azadeh Faridi·Boris Bellalta·Gabriel Martorell·David Malone

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Abstract

In wireless local area networks (WLANs), a media access protocol arbitrates access to the channel. In current IEEE 802.11 WLANs, carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) is used. Carrier sense multiple access with enhanced collision avoidance (CSMA/ECA) is a subtle variant of the well-known CSMA/CA algorithm that offers substantial performance benefits. CSMA/ECA significantly reduces the collision probability and, under certain conditions, leads to a completely collision-free schedule. The only difference between CSMA/CA and CSMA/ECA is that the latter uses a deterministic backoff after successful transmissions. This deterministic backoff is a constant and is the same for all the stations. The first part of the paper is of tutorial nature, offering an introduction to the basic operation of CSMA/ECA and describing the benefits of this approach in a qualitative manner. The second part of the paper surveys related contributions, briefly summarizing the main challenges and potential solutions, and also introducing variants and derivatives of CSMA/ECA.

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BibTeX RIS

Jaume Barcelo, Azadeh Faridi, Boris Bellalta, Gabriel Martorell, David Malone. 2013-11-04. On the Distributed Construction of a Collision-Free Schedule in WLANs. https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0787

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