Network Allocation Vector-based dynamic backoff algorithm for IEEE 802.11 DCF

This paper presents a novel backoff algorithm based on a Network Allocation Vector (NAV) for the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF). In the DCF, the NAV indicates the amount of time that a medium will be reserved by other nodes, so it provides an accurate estimation of neighbor nodes activities around a node. Thus, the proposed scheme dynamically adjusts the contention window according to the variation of neighbor nodes activities, which is estimated by NAV measurements. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms existing schemes in terms of total throughput and fairness between nodes.