Saturation Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11e EDCA

IEEE 802.11e standard has been published to introduce quality of service (QoS) support to the conventional IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN). Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) is used as the fundamental access mechanism for the medium access control (MAC) layer in IEEE 802.11e. In this paper, a novel Markov chain based model with a simple architecture for EDCA performance analysis under the saturated traffic load is proposed. Compared with the existing analytical models of EDCA, the proposed model incorporates more features of EDCA into the analysis. Firstly, we analyze the effect of using different arbitration interframe spaces (AIFSs) on the performance of EDCA. That is, the time interval from the end of the busy channel can be classified into different contention zones based on the different AIFSs used by different sets of stations, and these different sets of stations may have different transmission probabilities in the same contention zone. Secondly, we analyze the possibility that a station’s backoff procedure may be suspended due to transmission from other stations. We consider that the contention zone specific transmission probability caused by the use of different AIFSs can affect the occurrence and the duration of the backoff suspension procedure. Based on the proposed model, saturated throughput of EDCA is analyzed. Simulation study is performed, which demonstrates that the proposed model has better accuracy than those in the literature.