A Cross-Layer Investigation for the Throughput Performance of CSMA/CA-Based WLANs With Directional Antennas and Capture Effect

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a physical/medium-access-control (PHY/MAC) cross-layer analytical model to investigate the throughput performance of the wireless local-area network (WLAN) in a lossy wireless environment. From the PHY-layer perspective, the developed model incorporates the effects of capture and directional antennas, while from the MAC-layer perspective, our approach takes into account the carrier-sense multiple access with collision-avoidance (CSMA/CA) MAC protocol and the effect of the backoff process in the IEEE 802.11 WLAN. We derive explicit analytical expressions for the frame outage and capture probabilities of a directional antenna system in the presence of shadowing and Rayleigh fading. Applying this analysis, we can model the interaction between the PHY and MAC layers more accurately for the infrastructure-based WLAN. The numerical results show that our analytical model can approach that attained by simulations. The proposed cross-layer analytical model not only provides insights into the PHY layer impacts on the throughput of the CSMA/CA MAC protocol but also indicates to how directional antennas can improve the CSMA/CA-based WLAN in terms of antenna beamwidth and the number of radio transceivers.