Performance analysis of IEEE 802.11e EDCA in wireless LANs

In this paper, we propose an analytical model for the performance evaluation of IEEE 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA). Different from most previous analytical studies based on the saturation assumption, we extend the analytical model to non-saturation conditions. An empty state is introduced into the Markov chain to represent the status of transmission queue being empty. This model can be used to calculate the traffic priority, throughput, and MAC layer delay with various configurations of contention parameters. A detailed simulation is provided to validate the proposed model. With the help of this model, the contention parameters can be configured appropriately to achieve specific quality-of-service (QoS) requirements.