Improved Probabilistic Models for 802.11 Protocol Verification

The IEEE 802.11 protocol is a popular standard for wireless local area networks. Its medium access control layer (MAC) is a carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) design and includes an exponential backoff mechanism that makes it a possible target for probabilistic model checking. In this work, we identify ways to increase the scope of application of probabilistic model checking to the 802.11 MAC. Current techniques model only specialized cases of minimum size. To work around this problem, we identify properties of the protocol that can be used to simplify the models and make verification feasible. Using these observations, we present generalized probabilistic timed automata models that are independent of the number of stations. We optimize these through a novel abstraction technique while preserving probabilistic reachability measures.We substantiate our claims of a significant reduction due to our optimization with results from using the probabilistic model checker PRISM