A renewal theory based performance and configuration framework of the IEEE 802.11ah RAW mechanism

IEEE 802.11ah is a new Wi-Fi standard for sub-1Ghz communications, aiming to address the challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT). Significant changes in the legacy 802.11 standards have been proposed to improve the network performance in high contention scenarios, the most important of which is the Restricted Access Window (RAW) mechanism. This mechanism promises to increase the throughput and energy efficiency by dividing stations into different groups. Under this scheme, only the stations belonging to the same group may access the channel, which reduces the collision probability in dense scenarios. However, the standard does not define the RAW grouping strategy. In this paper, we develop a new mathematical model based on the renewal theory, which allows for tracking the number of transmissions within the limited RAW slot contention period defined by the standard. We then analyze and evaluate the performance of the RAW mechanism. We also introduce a grouping scheme to organize the stations and channel access time into different groups within the RAW. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm to derive the RAW configuration parameters of a throughput maximizing grouping scheme. We additionally explore the impact of channel errors on the contention within the time-limited RAW slot and the overall RAW optimal configuration. The presented analytical framework can be applied to many other Wi-Fi standards that integrate periodic channel reservations. Extensive simulations using the MATLAB software validate the analytical model and prove the effectiveness of the proposed RAW configuration scheme.