Performance of IEEE 802.11 MAC in Underwater Wireless Channels

The future ubiquitous ambient systems will probably be incomplete without underwater wireless networks. In this paper we present an analytic model for the throughput of the IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol in underwater acoustic networks. Underwater acoustic networks suffer from long propagation delays and low bit rates. The IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol, designed for free space radio channels, faces difficulties in the underwater channel. This paper proposes a model to analyze the IEEE 802.11 throughput in underwater acoustic networks. The proposed model is verified with detailed simulations and is accurate for a continuous range of propagation delays from less than a microsecond to over a full second, making it suitable for a detailed throughput performance analysis of the 802.11 MAC protocol in underwater acoustic networks.