Turning Hidden Nodes Into Helper Nodes in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN Networks

To enhance the performance of IEEE 802.11 WLANs in the presence of hidden terminal problem, the authors proposes a protocol that allows non-hidden stations to help each other retransmit faster whenever possible. Opposite to other approaches, the new protocol benefits from the hidden terminal problem to improve the performance of DCF, which is the basic operation of IEEE 802.11. The new protocol is compatible with IEEE 802.11, and works with the same PHY of IEEE 802.11. Using Opnet simulation, results show that the proposed scheme improves throughput, delay, packet drop, retransmissions, and fairness with small trade-off regarding fairness depending on the network topology.