Combating Network Collisions by Reservation in Wireless CSMA Networks

Network collision is a known problem in CSMA/CA networks. This work presents a new solution to mitigate the issue of network collision. Our solution is fundamentally different from traditional random backoff methods in that a station can reasonably reuse a time slot in consecutive backoff cycles to achieve resource reservation. This solution can be readily used to enhance 802.11 DCF/EDCA with minimum modification to existing implementation. Results show that it can significantly reduce network collisions and achieves near collision-free state in small to middle-sized 802.11e wireless LANs, at near zero costs.