Analysis of CSMA/CA Systems under Carrier Sensing Error: Throughput, Delay and Sensitivity

Abstract — In this paper, the performance of the carrier sense multiple access / collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) protocol under the presence of carrier sensing error is analyzed. Based on our previous work [1], we extend the results to n-user case (n>2), and analyze the sensitivity of the throughput with respect to the key physical-layer parameter, the sensing threshold, via a cross-layer approach. The result provide guidelines about how to operate the CSMA/CA considering imperfect sensing at physical layer. It is shown that the throughput sensitivity highly depends on the ratio of the contention window size W to the frame length L, and the throughput is sensitive to the design of the sensing threshold when W/L is either small or large. I