A directional MAC for switchable directional antennas to enhance throughput in crowded infrastructure wireless networks

In conventional infrastructure wireless networks, access points and nodes use omni-directional antennas. In a crowded situation, users have experienced throughput degradation due to various reasons. In this paper, we propose wireless LANs equipped with switchable directional antennas and a directional MAC protocol designed for them. In the proposed wireless LAN, every node including access point is always engaged in directional transmission and reception, but a node is allowed to receive omni-directionally only for association process. This new system enhances throughput in overlapped multiple basic service sets by reducing interference, increasing spatial reuse, and avoiding transmission loss phenomenon (TLP). The simulation results show that the proposed protocol outperforms conventional IEEE 802.11 DCF, in terms of throughput in crowded infrastructure wireless networks.