Effects of Delay Variation of IEEE 802.11 on Synchronization in Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

The 802.11 MAC protocol, extensively used in wireless networks, handles the problem of collisions over a shared medium in part by avoiding them through the use of a random backoff counter drawn from an exponentially increasing range. This stochastic process, along with the threat of collisions and the need to share the medium, cause random packets to face significantly higher delays than others. This work explores these variations in delay, notes the effect on end to end delay variation, and records time synchronization data over modestly-sized 802.11 ad hoc networks.