Analysis of Hidden Terminal Effect on a CSMA/CA Network under Fading Environment

In the CSMA wireless networks, the carrier sense mechanism is severely affected by hidden terminal problem and frequency of packet collision increases. However, the detailed analysis of the packet transmission success ratio suffered from hidden terminals in fading environment has not been studied. This paper presents the method for analyzing the ratio by setting a mathematical model and considering three parameters: distances between nodes, propagation characteristic of radio wave and carrier sense level. The network simulations for the same model were conducted to validate the analysis. The obtained results show that the carrier sense level has significant impact on the packet transmission performance. The presented method can be widely used to analyze the CSMA/CA networks.