Modeling Nonsaturated Contention-Based IEEE 802.11 Multihop Ad Hoc Networks

The IEEE 802.11 contention-based distributed coordination function has been used in ad hoc networks, and so far, a comprehensive mathematical analysis of such multihop systems has not been reported in the literature due to complicating factors such as hidden terminals and the unreachability problem. In this paper, we propose a new analytical model based on the parallel space-time Markov chain for IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) in multihop ad hoc networks. The proposed scheme is able to model the hidden-terminal and unreachability phenomena. Extensive evaluation is conducted to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed framework.