Design and performance evaluation of a distributed contention control (DCC) mechanism for IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks

This paper focuses on the design ad the performance eAuation of a new mecb -, named Dtibuted Contention Control (DCC), for the adaptive reduction of contention in LAN netiorks that utfie random ace- MAC prot~ cob. Sp*dy, we consider the ~EE 802.11 wirds LAN ~WAN). The proposed mechanism codd be executed on the top of a pr~~tent access schedfig protocol, with no additiond overhead introduced The DCC mechanism r~ quirw a simple and rough estimate of any parameter ~ to investigate, and directly connected with the amount of contention currently stiered by the shared channel. The main charact~ti= of the proposed mechanism are repr~ sented by its simpbcity, integrabtity, complete distribution, absence of overheads, and adaptiven=- The adaptiven= is given in a my automatic way, by means of a feedback effect connected to the =timated contention parameter. This contribute to enhance the system stab%e. Sitiation experiments to eduate the performance of an EEE 802.11 WLAN, with and without the DCC mechanism, have been ~ed out. Rdts confirmed the tiectiven= of the DCC mechanism in improving the performance, stabfi~, and congestion reaction of the EEE 802.11 access scheme.