A channel bonding MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11ac WLANs

Abstract

IEEE 802.11 DCF, which is the most famous MAC protocol, can not fully exploit the efficiency of channel bonding mechanism. The transmission in wider bandwidth not only leads to a higher carrier-sensing threshold but also causes the less signal power in each channel. Hence, Outside Warning Range Problem (OWRP) is conducted in the paper for IEEE 802.11ac WLANs. The paper analyzes the relationships among the transmission range, carrier-sensing range, and interference range in case that channel bonding mechanism is adopted and proposes a MAC protocol for IEEE 802.11ac WLANs to avoid collisions. Simulation results show that the proposed MAC protocol can increase network throughput.