An IEEE 802.11 Channel Access Simulator based on the Python NumPy Library

Created as an engineering project at AGH University of Science and Technology

Author: Cecylia Borek, Supervisor: Szymon Szott, PhD

Basic Description

This IEEE 802.11 channel access simulator was created to support basic simulation scenarios and to facilitate research of the DCF function. It allows specifying various input parameters and returns probability of collission and aggregate network throughput as primary results. It was created in accordance with IEEE 802.11a, using the NumPy library and based on the contention round approach used in the simulation model of this research paper. For more information regarding the simulator, project goals and assumptions made during the implementation of the simulator, refer to the thesis.

Usage

The main part of the simulator is the dcf_simulation function. It can be used in the following way:

results = dcf_simulation(N=10, cw_min=15, cw_max=1023, seed=1, data_rate=54, control_rate=24, mac_payload=1500)

The full list of possible input parametrs and their meaning can be found in the docstring of the dcf_simulation function.

The results returned by the function are in the form of a class, which contains two fields: mean probability of collision and aggregate network throughput. They can be accessed the following way:

p_coll = results.mean_collision_probability
thr = results.network_throughput

The full list of possible return values and their meaning can be found in the docstring of the dcf_simulation function.