Effective Static and Adaptive Carrier Sensing for Dense Wireless CSMA Networks

Abstract: The increasingly dense deployments of wireless CSMA networks arising from applications of Internet-of-things call for an improvement to mitigate the interference among simultaneous transmitting wireless devices. For cost efficiency and backward compatibility with legacy transceiver hardware, a simple approach to address interference is by appropriately configuring the carrier sensing thresholds in wireless CSMA protocols, particularly in dense wireless networks. Most prior studies of the configuration of carrier sensing thresholds are based on a simplified conflict graph model, whereas this paper considers a realistic signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio model. We provide a comprehensive study for two effective wireless CSMA protocols: Cumulative-interference-Power Carrier Sensing and Incremental-interference-Power Carrier Sensing, in two aspects: (1) static approach that sets a universal carrier sensing threshold to ensure interference-safe transmissions regardless of network topology, and (2) adaptive approach that adjusts the carrier sensing thresholds dynamically based on the feedback of nearby transmissions. We also provide simulation studies to evaluate the starvation ratio, fairness, and goodput of our approaches.