Probabilistic-Based Rate Adaptation for IEEE 802.11 WLANs

Collision awareness has been recognized as a critical component for effective rate adaptation schemes. Recently, several collision-aware rate adaptation schemes have been proposed for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs (WLANs), such as CARA (Collision Aware Rate Adaptation) and RRAA (Robust Rate Adaptation Algorithm). These schemes are able to distinguish between channel-error-induced and collision-induced frame losses via adaptive and appropriate usage of RTS/CTS; hence the multiple transmission rates provided by 802.11 Physical Layers (PHYs) may be fully exploited. In this paper, the authors propose a unique collision-aware rate adaptation scheme, called PBRA (Probabilistic-Based Rate Adaptation).