Improving throughput by tuning carrier sensing in 802.11 wireless networks

In this paper, we study the impacts of physical carrier sensing and channel rate on the throughput of 802.11 wireless networks with chain topology. Firstly, we show that by adopting different carrier sensing thresholds for the RTS and CTS transmissions, the blocking problem caused by exposed terminals can be greatly alleviated. In 802.11 wireless networks with this modification, the spatial reuse ratio under certain channel rates can be increased to 13, which is the highest value to our best knowledge. Secondly, in multi-rate networks, we demonstrate that 13 is still the best value of spatial reuse ratio in terms of maximizing the achievable data rate under certain conditions. Thirdly, this paper proposes a new method to address the intra-flow contention by decreasing the carrier sensing threshold of the source node. This method requires less response time than that of the traditional method which adjusts the backoff window size. Finally, extensive simulations are implemented in NS2 and the results show that our scheme significantly improves the throughput of 802.11 wireless networks with chain topology.