Analytical Modeling of IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function

The study group 802.11 was formed under the IEE Project 802 to recommend and international standard for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The final version provides a detailed medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specification for WLANs. To access the medium IEEE 802.11 defines a mechanism call the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) Mechanism. In this term paper, we have tried to describe the efforts that have taken place in the direction of the analytical modeling of the Distributed Coordination Function Mechanism. In Sec. 2 of this paper, we have described the working of DCF, to familiarize with the mechanism. In Sec. 3, we mention briefly the work that has taken place so far in the analytical modeling of the DCF mechanism. In Sec. 4, we go on to outline the method used to model the DCF, on the lines of the seminal work of Bianchi [Bian00], who first analyzed the mechanism using Markov-chain models.