Latency Modelling In Ieee 802.11 Systems With Non-Ieee 802.11 Interfering Source

Centralised wireless network management becomes increasingly common but requires information about wireless links to be able to properly use the existing spectrum. IEEE 802.11 employs the Distributed Coordination Function (DCF), which uses a decentralised Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) approach to control the access to the wireless medium. Both IEEE 802.11 and non IEEE 802.11 sources can interfere with the transmission and degrade performance, but the impact of non-IEEE 802.11 interfering sources has not been extensively researched yet in literature. Only systems without a non-IEEE 802.11 interfering sources are considered in existing models. In this paper we explore the impact of non-IEEE 802.11 interference through realistic measurements in a large-scale wireless testbed. Based on these observations, we discuss the impact of an interfering source and identify the main components that affect the delay. We also propose an outline of a possible analytical model that we will extend in future work.