An Efficient Simulation Model for Wireless LANs Applied to the IEEE 802.11 Standard

Paul Mühlethaler (1) , Najid Abdellah (1)

1 HIPERCOM - High performance communication

In this research report, we propose a simple simulation model for wireless LANs. In wireless LANs, contrary to LANs different transmission results can be observed by network nodes. This phenomenon is the result of radio propagation laws where the signal decay is by far more important than on cables. This leads to new and interesting modelization and simulation problems. In this article we propose a simple but general physical model to take into account radio propagation. We then apply this model to the study of the IEEE 802.11 standard. We show how IEEE 802.11 can be efficiently modeled and simulated. This allows us to offer a detailed study of the standard. We will give performance evaluations of the IEEE 802.11 DS standard with transmisson rate 1, 2, 5.5 or 11 Mbit/s which take into account the exact protocol overhead. We also study special behaviour as broadcast transmission, performance with hidden nodes, spatial reuse.

Mots clés: WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORK; IEEE 802.11 STANDARD; ETHERNET; PERFORMANCE EVALUATION; HIDDEN NODES; SPATIAL REUSE

Domaines: Autre [cs.OH]

Paul Mühlethaler, Najid Abdellah. An Efficient Simulation Model for Wireless LANs Applied to the IEEE 802.11 Standard. [Research Report] RR-4182, INRIA. 2001. ⟨inria-00072441⟩