2019 IEEE 8th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE)
Synchronization Mechanism for Collision and Against
Collision in Densely Deployed Wireless LANs
Kensuke Hiroshima
Nagoya University
Nagoya, Japan
hiroshima@net.itc.nagoya-uc.ac.jp
Abstract — We here propose a novel MAC instead of DCF,
SMTC/CI (Semi-synchronous Multiple Transmission Control
/ Collision Inference), which achieves high fairness and
throughputs by inducing effective parallel transmissions with
frame capture effect. The radio interference could disturb
high-quality communications with fairness, because of the
spreading of mobile wireless LANs such as mobile router and
tethering nodes. Hence, we need an innovative MAC
considering interference among wireless LANs. Frame
capture effect is the key factor in order to improve quality of
communications in dense wireless LANs. SMTC/CI consults
history of frame transmissions in order to infer the effective
collisions due to frame capture effect, then maintain superior
synchronous transmissions. As a result of our simulation,
throughput is improved up to 112% compared with
conventional MAC.
Keywords — Wireless LAN ， Medium Access Control
(MAC)，Frame capture effect，IEEE 802.11g
I. INTRODUCTION
Higher throughputs and higher fairness are desired in
wireless LAN communications for future rich applications.
So far, many idea have been proposed in order to achieve it.
For example, frame aggregation control in IEEE 802.11n [1,
2], CW (Contention Window) control in DCF (Distributed
Coordination Function) [3, 4], and so on. However, while
many MACs (Medium Access Control) for a single wireless
LAN have been proposed, there are not many considering
interference among wireless LANs. In the situation where
multiple wireless LANs interfere, connection is possible but
comfortable communication may not always be guaranteed.
Hence, it is extremely significant to consider the MAC for
dense wireless LANs.
We here propose a novel MAC instead of DCF, SMTC/CI
(Semi-synchronous Multiple Transmission Control /
Collision Inference), which achieves high fairness and
throughputs by inducing effective parallel transmissions
with frame capture effect. The concept of SMTC/CI is based
on synchronizing transmission opportunities between
wireless LANs. Especially, SMTC/CI refers the history of
frame transmission results in order to distinguish efficient
frame capture effect while transmitting.
SMTC/CI maintains fairness using with static CW values.
Dynamic CW control could incur unfairness due to a
difference of obtaining transmission opportunities between
BSSs (Basic Service Set). Considering that unspecified
users build a wireless LAN system such as a mobile wireless
LAN, the gap of obtaining transmission opportunities
among wireless LANs becomes a serious problem, for all
users to communicate comfortably. On the other hand,
SMTC/CI uses static CW values. Therefore, network hosts
can equally obtain transmission opportunities. Hence,
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Tutomu Murase
Nagoya University
Nagoya, Japan
tom@itc.nagoya-uc.ac.jp
SMTC/CI can avoid unfairness of transmission
opportunities among wireless LANs.
II. RELATED WORKS
The approaches which reduce Min CW [4] is one of the
most powerful ways to improve throughputs due to frame
capture effect, regardless of fairness. These methods are
significantly effective on specific situations where radio
interference among each wireless LANs can efficiently
utilize frame capture effect. However, the difference of CW
values has the potential which incurs the gap of obtaining
transmission opportunities among network hosts due to
variance of policy between OBSSs (Overlapping BSS). As
an example to solve this problem, an arbitration between
wireless LANs can be considered. Although, this idea has
dis-advantage of communication overheads, decreasing
parallel transmission opportunities, and so on.
SRB (Semi Random Back-off)[5] is an epochal MAC
which can avoid frame collisions by TDMA manner in
CSMA/CA without a management station nor
communications between hosts. In order to avoid frame
collisions between hosts, SRB uses a fixed back-off time if
and only if transmissions are successful. Hence,
transmission opportunities between hosts become equal,
and frame collisions become prevented. Thus, SRB
achieves high throughput and fairness. However, SRB does
not efficiently work in OBSS. This is because SRB avoids
all frame collisions even if the collisions result in parallel
successful transmissions due to frame capture effect.
We propose an advanced MAC, SMTC/CI, which
improves high throughput and fairness with utilizing frame
capture effect, while adapting to various situations flexibly.
Note that we define fairness in dense wireless LANs is
“throughput of each station of all wireless LANs are equal”.
III. PROPOSED METHOD
In this section, we propose a new MAC, SMTC/CI.
SMTC/CI attempts to synchronize a frame transmission
opportunities between wireless LANs without management
stations while avoiding internal frame collisions in a
wireless LAN. SMTC/CI infers effective frame collisions in
the process of transmitting. Then, such frame transmission
opportunities are synchronized in order to continue parallel
transmitting with frame capture effect.
The ideas of SMTC/CI are as follows.
(i). When the frame transmitting is good, the next
transmission opportunity also matches in order to
continue parallel transmitting. Otherwise, next
transmission opportunity is reconsidered randomly;
performed as same as CSMA/CA.
(ii). Infer what the frame transmitting is good or else.
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 In the case of (i), for synchronization of frame transmission Table 1. Simulation parameters
opportunities, SMTC/CI behaves deterministic back-off as
Tx. Power 10 dBm
same as SRB if the state of transmitting is good. All
transmitting hosts use fixed back-off time for successful CCA Level -82 dBm
transmissions. Hence, the parallel transmissions continue Distance between AP and STA 0.3 m
permanently as long as transmissions are succeeded. As the Standard IEEE 802.11g
results, throughputs are improved due to frame capture Transmission Rate (fixed) 54 Mbps
effect. The way how to distinguish that the state of Traffic Saturated UDP
transmitting is good or else, is mentioned later. Payload 1472 Bytes
In the case of (ii), the states of transmitting are inferred RTS/CTS Off
using statistical indicators. SMTC/CI does not react Propagation Loss Model Log distance
immediately depending on transmission successful or failed Exponential Propagation Loss
3.0
of just one transmission. In the case of a frame transmission Coefficient
failed: if frame collisions are occurred, SMTC/CI decides Fading Model Rice-Nakagami
probabilistically to maintain synchronizing or not by
referring to the transmission history. The reason for
stochastically determining the back-off behavior is to avoid 1
loss of synchronization due to fading or the like. In addition, 100

Total throughput [Mbps]

SMTC/CI includes the ides of binary exponential back-off
80
of CSMA/CA in order to secure fairness at a congestion

Fairness Index
( refer to (i) ). Therefore, the same performance equivalent
60
of CSMA/CA is kept if the bandwidth increase due to frame 0.5
capture effect becomes a limit. 40
IV. PERFOMANCE EVALUATION DCF ACW
20
SRB SMTC/CI
We suppose a simple model for performance evaluation SMTC/CI(FI)
with network simulator ns-3 in order to measure basic 0 0
characteristics of SMTC/CI. Consider 3 wireless LANs with 0 20 40 60 80 100
one station (STA) arranged in a regular triangle on the Distance between WLANs [m]
Euclid plane, then define that the distance between wireless Fig. 1 Distance between wireless LANs vs.
LANs is the length of one side of the regular triangle. In this throughputs and fairness
paper, we assume a mobile wireless LAN where its STA is
close to the AP as seen in tethering or mobile router usage.
For simplicity, this study supposes one-way saturated UDP We evaluated the distance between wireless LANs vs. the
traffic from STA to AP. We consider IEEE 802.11g with total throughput and fairness. Compared with the
54Mbps. Detailed parameters are shown in Table 1. conventional methods, SMTC/CI succeeds in improving
the total throughput up to about 112% compared to the
In order to show the effectiveness of SMTC/CI, we conventional methods while maintaining the fairness at the
compared with scheme (1) DCF, (2) SRB[5] and (3) wireless LAN distance of around 15-30 m.
Adaptive CWmin control (ACW) [4]. The fixed value of
deterministic back-off in SMTC/CI and SRB applied 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
which is the average of CWmin specified in IEEE 802.11g, A part of the research in this paper is supported through
then CWmax use 1023. Grants-in-aid for Scientific Research (19H04093).
Figure 1 shows the relationship between the distance REFERENCES
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